10 YEARS AGO

Hospital plan: Plans for a new £75m hospital at Cramlington were unveiled by Northumbria Healthcare Trust.

JOB LOSSES: Hexham-based chipboard manufacturer Egger was considering a round of redundancies following a trade downturn, just 19 months after the new £110m factory opened.

PUPPY SCHOOL: Northumbria Police struck a deal to use more than 50 schools across the county as training centres for police dogs on evenings, weekends, and school holidays.

BUSH FIRE: Hexham teenager Tommy Cant described the horror of devastating bush fires in Australia, which took place in Churchill, Victoria, just two miles from where he was staying.

25 YEARS AGO

FLAT ROW: Italian hairdresser Antonio di Girolamo was set to defy Hexham town councillors and name his new block of flats on Priestpopple Myenza Apartments, after his home town.

GUESS WHO: People in Haltwhistle were asked to match photographs of the town’s councillors with ones taken of them when they were babies, all to help raise cash for much needed play equipment.

FOREIGN AID: Neil and Jane Roberts, who sent aid out to war-torn Bosnia, received a letter of thanks from the then battered city of Dubrovnik, from the family who received their aid.

PILING UP: The proposed new Safeway store at the Fewster’s premises near Hexham looked doomed, as county and town councils added their weight against it.

50 YEARS AGO

MEDICAL CONCERN: A parliamentary secretary at the DHSS told Hexham MP Geoffrey Rippon that no decision had been taken on the proposed closure of the children’s ward at Hexham General Hospital.

INTERNATIONAL MIX: An Indian physics teacher and an Australian biology master joined the staff of Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Hexham – which already employed language assistants from France and Germany.

TV NIGHT: Three TV dealers staged an evening of “Colourvision” in Hexham – with a competition run by the Pye Colour Girl.

FIRST DETAILS: A packed meeting at Kielder Community Centre heard the first details about the massive proposed Kielder Reservoir.

75 YEARS AGO

ROAD HAZARD: Corbridge parish councillors asked for two road blocks, described as “death traps”, to be removed from the village.

SOBER HALTWHISTLE: Figures revealed only one conviction for drunkenness in Haltwhistle in 1943 – unlike in Hexham, where there had been 16.

POLICE RESPECT: Four police sergeants were underbearers at the funeral of Mr Herbert Lees in Hexham. Lees was a magistrate, businessman, and secretary of the Hexham Gas Company.

100 YEARS AGO

NEW SOCIALISTS: A debating class at Low Prudhoe would create a “new order” from the working classes.

FLAG DAY: A grand patriotic carnival called “Great Britain and her Allies” was given in Bardon Mill by the Allies Concert Party of Hexham.

GATE APPEAL: An appeal for £135 went out to provide a lych gate war memorial in connection with Allendale Parish Church.

125 YEARS AGO

PHONEY CASE: The occupier of Prospect House in Hexham lost an important test case against the National Telephone Company, after accusing them of trespassing by fixing telephone wires over Bank Head.

JAIL TIME: An old woman from Acomb with a long criminal record was sentenced to six weeks hard labour for stealing a poss-stick, used for washing clothes.

SNOW PROBLEM: The publican of the Click’em Inn was given a light sentence for selling drink after licensing hours – because he claimed a snowstorm had kept customers inside.

150 YEARS AGO

SOMETHING FISHY: A “splendid” salmon, weighing 18 pounds, was caught by Mr John Johnstone of Acomb Colliery at River’s Meet.

SERIOUS ACCIDENT: A Mr J.J Walker, son of Mr Wylam Walker fell off his horse near the travellers rest whilst racing a friend on the way home from a fox hunt, sustaining a serious injury to the forehead.

DESTRUCTIVE FLOODS: The weather had been characterised by heavy downfalls and strong winds for the previous few days, with the Tyne flooding at Hexham and causing damage to the corn mills at Humshaugh, Wall, and Hexham.

YOUNG SMOKERS: A Courant reporter was disgusted to find that almost all the boys at every school in the town were smokers. He wrote: “Who can wonder at children growing up stunted, pale faced objects when they are permitted to indulge in this pernicious habit without let or hinderence.”