10 YEARS

PISTE PLANS: A taste of the Swiss Alps was coined to make its way to Haltwhistle. Local vicar Canon Raymond Best said that two million visitors a year could be lured to the South Tyne capital by the creation of as cable car service, linking the town centre with Hadrian’s Wall.

planning proposals: Hexham Civic Society worked in partnership with Newcastle University urban planning graduates to come up with five proposals for the redevelopment of Hexham Bus Station. One of the most ambitious proposals outlined a gallery space mounted on stilts above the listed ropery building, complete with glazed decking overlooking Hexham.

brilliant bypass: After waiting nearly 30 years for it, campaigners had two weeks to wait until their Haydon Bridge bypass came true. Construction workers were adding the finishing touches to the £26m by-pass until it opened top the public.

fond farmer: Tributes were paid to a Hexham farmer who died in a road crash. David Nixon Herron, of Causey Hill, was travelling along Allendale Road, Hexham in a trailer containing sheep, when the quad bike towing the trailer collided with a vehicle travelling in the opposite direction.

25 YEARS

top town: Haltwhistle scooped a £2m bonanza through its pioneering scheme to breathe new life back into the town – and it was up to the townspeople to come up with schemes to spend the cash on.

telling porkies: A Hexham family butcher’s business was fined by Tynedale Magistrates’ Court for selling sausages with less than the specified amount of meat in them. Sausages sold contained 76.8 per cent meat, instead of 85 per cent as advertised on the label. The sausages also contained 800mg of sulphur dioxide – 350g more than permitted.

sorry sheep: An Allendale councillor complained that dead sheep were being left to rot in parts of the Allen Valley. Councillors agreed sheep being left lying around too long was both unhealthy and unsightly.

county change: Northumberland County Council identified a regeneration of the economy and the environment as its top priorities in plans to take the county into the next century.

classy cricketer: Tynedale Cricket Club reminisced over West Indies fast bowler Courtney Walsh, 10 years after he started his Tynedale career. Regard as one of the finest bowlers in the world, Walsh cut his teeth as a 20-year-old with Tynedale, helping the club retain the old Northumberland County League ‘A’ Division title for a third successive year, and to lift three cups.

50 YEARS AGO

Loose change: Three teenagers were fined for carving their names with pennies on the newly plastered wall of a public convenience in Priestpopple, Hexham.

Christ alive: Making a life sized figure of Christ writhing in agony on the cross had made Prudhoe High School pupils deeply aware of its horror, said an art teacher.

75 YEARS AGO

Gas mishap: A 62-year-old Hexham man died of coal gas poisoning after accidentally turning on a loose gas tap with the flick of a duster, an inquest was told.

Roadblocks ahead: A Sandhoe youth who admitted laying a boulder on the Stagshaw Road at Corbridge, and placing a wooden seat on Hamstead Road, was fined £3 by Hexham magistrates.

100 YEARS AGO

Soldier blue: A Hexham soldier accused of being an absentee told a court he had not returned to France because his wife and family were ill in bed.

Village link: Politicians from Mickley attended a public meeting in Ovington to gauge interest in a new bridge across the Tyne.

125 YEARS AGO

Cruel rumours: Magistrates dismissed charges against a Prudhoe man accused of beating, whipping and threatening to hang his children. His neighbours had spread lies, said the man.

Sniffed out: An Errington farmer bought a bloodhound to help in the search for arsonists who had attacked two of his buildings.

DEB’S DELIGHT: Lady Aline Beaumont, of Corbridge, was presented at Queen Victoria’s drawing room in Buckingham Palace.

150 YEARS AGO

pyro problems: Two tramps from Hexham were charged with destroying the whole of their clothes while in the vagrant ward, Hexham Workhouse, during the night. A man was also charged with setting fire to an outhouse at Fenwick, near Stamfordham.

awful accident: A three-year-old girl was pronounced dead at her home in Heddon-on-the-Wall after a house fire. An inquest heard the girl lit a stick at the fire, and her pinafore caught hold.

Watch out: A train guard at Redesmouth was run over by a loose wagon.