10 YEARS AGO

HOLIDAY PARK: A multi-million pound tourism development was being planned for Waterfalls Farm near Ridsdale. It was hoped that the scheme, devised by Sherod Walker, would create more than 120 jobs for the district.

RECORD RESULTS: Students from across the Tyne Valley were opening their A-level results, showing an improvement on the previous year across the board.

DOUBLE TROUBLE: Newton woman Jane Proud slipped and fell in her garage and broke her ankle. To make matters worse, Jane was heavily pregnant and four days overdue. She then went into labour that same night, and her son Miles was born at Hexham Hospital.

BETTER LATE: Work started on a development at Capability Brown’s birthplace in Kirkharle, based on a 250-year-old design by the landscape architect. The £100,000 lake and tree planting project was thought to be the first plan drawn up by Brown.

25 YEARS AGO

NOT PRETTY: A burn which used to run between houses in Prudhoe had been transformed into “an open sewer of Third World proportions,” according to the town’s mayor, Tony Williamson.

PRIVATE ROAD: The controversial A69 bypass at Haltwhistle was set to be the first new road in the country to be built using private funding, while the running of the rest of the road was set to go private too.

TIME TRAVEL: Blanchland was taken over by Tyne Tees Television and turned into a bustling, authentic market place scene from the 1850s, with the cameras filming part of the Catherine Cookson drama The Glass Virgin.

REGULAR JOE: The Anchor in Haydon Bridge threw a party for pensioner Joe Nevin, who had been drinking in the pub for 70 years.

50 YEARS AGO

BUS BOOST: The people of Hexhamshire won a concession from Northumberland County Education Authority, when it was announced that the public would be allowed to travel on school buses, if there was room for them. Scholars would still have priority on the buses, however.

GOOD SHOW: Gate receipts of £272 were taken from a record crowd of 1,600 at the Allendale show. Supreme champion and winner of the new Radcliffe-Cheston Junior Memorial Cup was Messrs Dockray’s Friesian cow.

FAYRE SUM: The summer fayre in Bellingham Town Hall raised £107 9s for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

75 YEARS AGO

CHURCHES LINK: The merger of three methodist church circuits in Wylam, Bardon Mill, and Hexham was unanimously supported by church representatives. An inauguration service was planned for September 2.

100 YEARS AGO

DOCTOR MOURNED: The people of Hexham and the surrounding villages were mourning the death of Dr Thomas Woodman, “a grievous loss from the medical profession which the town could ill-afford.” Dr Woodman had suffered a cerebral haemorrhage just days after making his usual visits, and died soon after.

GAME FOLK: A couple from Blaydon appeared a Hexham Petty Sessions charged with illegally running a game of hoop-la. The defendants said that the game was legal everywhere else in the country except Newcastle, but PC Massie said that the game was a fraud and there was no chance of winning. The chairman dismissed the charges when the defendants agreed to pay costs.

125 YEARS AGO

POLICE THREAT: A row erupted at the Hexham Board of Guardians concerning the minutes of the previous meeting. After a lengthy argument, the chairman threatened to call the police when Mr J. Welford would not be quiet.

150 YEARS AGO

POOR TASTE: A man tried to frighten his drunken wife by pretending to hang himself at their home. The woman brought a policeman, who took him off to the station and locked him up all night for his joke. He was discharged by magistrates with a caution the next morning.

DRUNK DECISIONS: Upon being released from Morpeth Gaol, Hexham man James Appleby proceeded to get drunk in Newcastle, get thrown out of his lodgings, and have a severe struggle with two police officers. Appleby was promptly sent back to jail for four months.

REAPED REWARDS: Mr Bell, a farmer at West Oakwood, was left with numerous injuries after an accident with a reaping machine in a harvest field, after the horses pulling it bolted and the machine hit a hedge.

STRONG FOUNDATIONS: The foundation stone of a new church at Alston was laid by Mrs Wilson, of Shotley Hall. The new church occupied the same site as the previous one, and featured a 120 ft spire.