The Hexham Courant headlines in Tynedale up to 150 years ago

10 years ago

LINE OPENING: The South Tynedale Railway Preservation Society set its sights on rebuilding the branch line between Haltwhistle and Alston which closed in 1976. It secured £4.2m in funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund to extend the line by a further 1.5 miles from Lintley Halt to Slaggyford. 

ROAD TO RECOVERY: Prudhoe Community High School saw an improvement in its Ofsted report as it was found to be no longer in need of special measures. 

25 years ago

SCHEME HALTED: It was claimed one of Hexham's longest-established businesses could quit the town in the wake of a planning bombshell. More than two and a half years after the public inquiry into the relocation of Matthew Charlton, the Government Office North East stunned everyone by asking for more information before making a final decision. Hexham MP Peter Atkinson feared this would be the last straw for the business.

Prudhoe girls Susan Russell and Sarah Rutherford in 1999 after a memorable teaching tour in Israel (Image: Newsquest)

CEILING FALLS: Part of the Old Hydro Building's ceiling at QEHS collapsed on the first day of term. It was the ceiling over one of the entrance doors which fell in. No pupils were in the building at the time. 

NO ONE HOME: Anti-hunt protestors gathered outside the North Tyne home of Hexham MP Peter Atkinson as part of a nationwide campaign. They dressed as foxes and waved placards outside the pro-hunting MP's house at Birtley, near Wark, in what was supposed to be a 24-hour fast - though they did refresh themselves at the village's Percy Arms pub. Their efforts went largely unnoticed, as neither Mr Atkinson nor his wife Brione were home.  

CANCER UNIT: Cancer Bridge, a Hexham-based charity, took over the old Inisfree residential home at Oakwood for the complementary therapy help centre it planned to set up in Hexham. 

50 years ago

ALL CHANGE: Haydon Bridge High School, a successor to the village's old county technical school, opened. 

ONLINE: A £12,000 new telephone exchange was built at Allenheads to provide subscriber trunk-dialling facilities for the 50 homes and businesses there with phones. 

BIRTHDAY BASH: Celebrations were held in Nenthead to mark the centenary of the Methodist chapel there.

WHOPPER WIN: Wylam's Hexham Sunday Junior Football League side beat their Haydon Bridge counterparts 18-0. 

75 years ago

UNGRATEFUL BEAST: A Bardon Mill farmer went to the aid of a cow whose calf was being attacked by a fox, only for the cow to turn on him and knock him to the ground, breaking several ribs in the process.

100 years ago

RIGHT PRICE: A pattern for cami-knickers 'to complete the wardrobe of every smart woman' could be obtained for 7d (nearly 3p) by writing to the editor; while ladies' fine cream ribbed Elasticka combinations could be bought in a special promotion at F Robinson and Sons of Fore Street, Hexham, for 2s 4d nearly 12p. 

GOING EAST: An outing to Carlisle arranged by the Haltwhistle branch of the Girls' Friendly Society attracted a 40-strong turnout.    

125 years ago

STREAKER SPOTTED: A naked man was reported to be at large in Tunnel Wood, near Corbridge. Various sightings of the naked mystery man were made over a period of weeks, laying to rest early suspicions he was just a figment of the imaginations of some villagers.  

150 years ago

FATAL FALL: Former South Tyne Valley man John Jackson, 36, was killed in a mining accident in Nova Scotia. Jackson, previously of Redpath, near Haltwhistle, had been working abroad for four years when he met his death. The accident was caused by a hoist rope giving way, plunging him down a 650ft mineshaft into a 9ft deep water tank.   

UP IN FLAMES: Fire gutted three 150-year-old cottages at Fellside, Hexham. None of their occupants were injured but the terraced homes were completely destroyed.