10 YEARS AGO

PUB STABBING: A man was recovering in hospital after being stabbed in the neck at a pub in Wylam. The 31-year-old was drinking with another man at The Ship Inn on the village's main street when he attacked at around 9.50pm on a Monday night.

CLEAN-UP: Staid Stamfordham was plunged into the national spotlight by a one-woman campaign to tidy up the village. A no-nonsense poster copied from Australia's Bondi Beach boomeranged back to stun prominent local landowner Joanna Riddell.

PARKING STOPPED: The axing of 800 free parking passes for Tynedale residents on Hexham Tyne Green was met with fury. Dog walkers, golfers and nature lovers joined forces to condemn the move by Northumberland County Council.

25 YEARS AGO

JOBS BOOST: Haltwhistle's ailing economy was boosted with the news 14 jobs were on the way. Local businessman David Taylor announced jobs would be created with the opening of the Centre of the Britain Hotel and Restaurant that summer.

TRAGIC ACCIDENT: A woman from Great Whittington was killed in a skiing accident in the French Alps. It was thought she was trying to rescue her son. Anne Conway (50) was on holiday with her husband Mike and their two sons Andrew and Jonathan on the outskirts of Geneva, Switzerland, where the family had a villa.

STAN SPOTS: A mysterious phenomenon more likely to be seen on the BBC's X-Files rather than in real life appeared in a Haydon Bridge field. Retired space consultant Stan 'Mitch' Mitchell came across what remains of the great unexplained mysteries of the world behind his home - two crop circles.

50 YEARS AGO

MINE PLANS: The National Coal Board began bidding to open an opencast mine at Stublick Moor, near Langley. The bid never came off but 25 years on, the site was once again being eyed up for open-cast use by Shropshire's Clay Colliery Company this time round.

SHUT SHOP: Hexham's F. Robinson & Sons department store announced it was to close within two months, leaving its 38-strong staff jobless.

GOALS GLUT: Hexham's North Tyne League side knocked in two late goals to clinch a 6-5 victory other Matfen after letting slip a 4-0 half-time lead.

DOWN UNDER: Bellingham electro-chemistry boffin John Diggle was given a post as a research fellow at the Australian National University in Canberra.

BIG SCREEN: Both ITV and the BBC announced plans to improve the quality of transmissions received by Tynedale television-watchers.

75 YEARS AGO

TOP TALKERS: Hexham Young Farmers' Club won a county-wide debating competition at Newcastle.

STATUS QUO: Labour failed to make any headway at that year's Hexham Urban Council elections and had to settle for keeping the seats it already held.

CREATING BUZZ: A branch of the Northumberland Beekeepers' Association was formed at Blanchland.

100 YEARS AGO

OFFENSIVE ODOUR: Hexham urban councillors were kicking up a stink about a strong and unpleasant smell emanating from the town's gas works. Complaints had been made about the smell before but nothing had apparently been done to tackle it, the meeting heard. It was resolved that the company be given a week to clean up its act.

FUNDRAISER SUCCESS: A whist drive held at Stocksfield Institute raised £20 for Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary.

125 YEARS AGO

METHODISTS HOODWINKED: A confident trickster swindled several Stocksfield Methodists out of a sizeable sum of money by purporting to be begging on behalf of a villager they knew called William Hutchinson.

BOW OUT: Edmundbyers' outgoing village bobby, a PC parish, later of Bellingham, was presented with a gold watch by villagers as a leaving present.