10 years ago

COUNCIL FURY: Plans unveiled by Northumberland County Council to close the Tynedale day care centres for the elderly provoked outrage. A barrage of criticism was levelled at the adult care department after it announced the centres in Hexham, Haltwhistle, Prudhoe and Ponteland could close.

BIN GATE: Residents expressed their outrage at having to cough up £90 for two new wheelie bins as part of a new low-cost housing scheme. Kielder residents were asked to pay £70 for two wheelie bins and a further £20 for a garden waste bin.

BIRD WATCH: An iconic bird of prey set up home in the North Tyne Valley for the first time in 200 years. A pair of ospreys moved into a specially constructed nesting site near Kielder Water.

CHARITY REBRAND: One of Tynedale’s best known charitable organisations was re-named in an attempt to better reflect what it does. Tynedale Hospice at Home – formerly Tynedale Community Hospice – announced it was adding bereavement counselling to its list of services.

25 years ago

HOUSING HOPES: An extra 500 new homes in Hexham were not needed, according to Northumberland County Council planners. Housing developer Bellway submitted an application to build on land at The Shaws and Leazes, but councillors were told the outlined land area had not been allocated for housing.

DEVELOPMENT DECISION: An ambitious £300,000 scheme to convert part of the historic Bellister Castle estate at Haltwhistle into hotel and conference facilities was revealed. The plans were hoped to breathe new life into the range of disused and decaying outbuildings.

GREEN LIGHT: A Hexham councillor said a decision to give Hexham its first set of traffic lights would disrupt the traffic flow. The lights were to be installed at the junction of Allendale Road, Hencotes and Shaftoe Leazes, as part of the scheme to develop a satellite fire station in nearby Graves Yard.

JEALOUS ASSAULT: The fear of losing his job provoked a Tynedale man to assault his rival, a court heard. The defendant had worked at the company for eight years before he began to feel the new employee was taking his job off him. The defending solicitor pointed out that the irony of the situation was that the defendant did not work for the company anymore.

50 years ago

FLY AWAY: Members of Prudhoe and District Flying Club were counting their losses after around half of their 99 birds failed to fly home from Beauvais, France.

DISTURBING DISCOVERY: A 59-year-old Haltwhistle man, found dead at home after a paper girl alerted the police, was believed to have died at least three weeks earlier.

POOR PERFORMANCE: Local rowers failed to shine at the Hexham regatta on Tyne Green, won by Durham school.

75 years ago

LEGAL LINGO: History was made at Hexham Court when Mrs Tweedy, of Allendale, was the first woman solicitor to conduct a case before the bench. Representing a couple of old age pensioners whose landlord wanted to move them out in favour of an agricultural worker, she lost the case – but the magistrates did give her clients three months to leave.

ORIENTAL OPINION: A Chinese guest speaker at Hexham Inner Wheel Club said her people had discovered “something better than their modern life” and adopted English and American ideas.

100 years ago

PAY PERSISTENCE: A London man, appointed Inspector of Nuisances by Bellingham District Council, wrote to turn down the job unless the salary was raised from £100 a year to £140.

AN EXHBITION: of war trophies in Ovingham included liqueur glasses found in Ypres, a piece of aluminium from a Zeppelin wreck, and a muffler torn by a German rifle bullet while round the neck of a villager.

SILVER LINING: General Charles Loftus Bates, twice unsuccessful Hexham Parliamentary candidate was awarded a knighthood.

125 years ago

GAVE UP: Liberal party members in each parish of the Hexham Division met to vote for a new Parliamentary candidate following their MP’s announcement that he would not stand again.

NEW HOME: Hexham Board of Guardians was told that of the 55 Tynedale ‘imbeciles’ in the Morpeth asylum, six could be moved to the Hexham workhouse.

150 years ago

SPEEDY STEED: A Bellingham-owned horse was let loose into the town after its owner failed to control it. Villagers met the horse, and endeavoured to return it to its stables, but the animal made straight for an open door of a nearby shop. The shopkeeper replaced the horse’s missing shoe and turned the sagacious brute out to find its way home, neighing satisfaction as it went.