10 YEARS AGO

STRANDED CHILDREN: Chaos reigned when revised school transport routes were launched, with some children left waiting for buses that never came.

GATHERING SUPPORT: More than 800 people signed a petition demanding improved road safety measures outside Hexham’s Queen Elizabeth High School, after student Jake Barrett was knocked down.

MIX UP: It was thought that the mystery of just who was cremated in place of a Stocksfield woman killed in a car crash in Spain could take weeks to resolve. The family of the woman held a service in Consett, while her body was left lying in a mortuary.

GHOST TOWN: Cath Tulip, a Prudhoe trader, claimed the town was turning into a ghost town after counting just nine people walking along Front Street on a Saturday morning.

25 YEARS AGO

SPENDING SPREE: A top official from English Heritage was to help launch a £2 million partnership scheme aimed at giving Haltwhistle a massive face-lift.

WARD AXE: Health 4 were being urged not to to scrap the children’s ward at Hexham Hospital, with Coun. Bill Moulding’s plea to keep a small ward, backed by members of Northumberland County Council’s health services advisory sub-committee.

SLIP FEARS: The people of Redesmouth were concerned that land slippage could destroy riverside properties in the hamlet.

MEETING UP: A youth club was set up in Haltwhistle to counter vandalism in the town, as well as tackling issues such as sex, drinking, smoking, and drugs.

50 YEARS AGO

INCAPABLE: A motorist involved in a collision in Bridge End, Hexham, was so drunk that a breath test proved impossible – so a doctor had to certify him with a visual test, magistrates heard.

ON SONG: It was announced that the BBC’s Songs of Praise would be coming to Hexham Abbey in June, with contributions from the 100-strong children’s choir.

FOR THE YOUNG: The medical officer of Hexham Urban Council said the fluoridation of local water supplies would be no use to people who had their wisdom teeth.

75 YEARS AGO

CAN’T, WON’T: A Jehovah’s Witness from Haydon Bridge refused to pay a fine for failing to comply with an order to take up word as a shorthand typist. She said her first duty was to give up her whole time to God.

THE BEGINNING: Coun. Joseph Cullen was elected chairman of Hexham Urban Council, a post he was to hold 10 times. With an almost 100 per cent attendance record, Coun. Cullen was said to have made council work his hobby by putting all his energy, enthusiasm, and thought into it.

MYSTERY MAN: After a Hexham urban councillor resigned and no-one had yet been co-opted to replace him, the council had to elect a “Mr X” to its committees.

STRANGE SABBATH: The vicar of Corbridge criticised special prayer days like “Farm Sunday”, saying that a nation fleeing back to God because it was in a tight corner was not the purpose of Christianity.

100 YEARS AGO

CLUB FOOTNOTE: The Hexham Abbey Cheer-Up Club, formed in the earl months of the First World War for those who had husbands and sons serving, was dissolved.

PRIEST’S POSER: After demobilisation from the Northumberland Fusiliers, the Rev. W. Ellis Pearson returned to Hexham Congregational Church with a sermon called “Have we won?”

LOOK BEFORE: An Allendale man fell over a stone wall about three fight high, plunged 12 feet, was found unconscious and died three days later.

125 YEARS AGO

ABSOLUTE MADNESS!: The Courant dubbed a spate of burglaries in the district as “house breaking mania” after incidents in Bellingham, Hexham, and Newbrough.

TEESIDE TUSSLE: A Mr Humble, from West Hartlepool, beat Mr Peet, of Middlesbrough, to the job of the new schoolmaster at Carrshields.

AGE WEARIED: A 100-year-old woman, Mrs Rose Kearney, died in Hexham of “natural decay.” The mother-of-14 had been confined to bed for 15 years, but could still say her prayers at night.

150 YEARS AGO

CAUTIONARY TALE: The Courant issued a caution to wrestlers, after two men were wrestling together at Broomside Colliery, when one of them was thrown under his antagonist and “received a severe fracture of the leg.”

GORY GOAT: Mrs Alderson, the wife of a pitman, sued Miller Hutchinson for £8 for injuries sustained by her child at the hands – or rather, horns – of a goat belonging to the defendant.

PREACHER WOMAN: Miss Gee, a talented young preacher, preached in Corbridge’s Primitive Methodist Chapel.