NOSTALGIA: Looking back 10, 25, 50 years ago (published Gazette, Thursday, February 4)

10 YEARS AGO: Thursday, February 9, 2006

Today the Gazette shows how the entrance to the rural market town of Alnwick is set to be transformed by an array of new developments. In recent years, planning applications have come and gone around the A1 and Willowburn Avenue for supermarkets, hotels, garden centres and sports complexes, not to mention McDonalds. Here we piece together the development jigsaw, present the situation as it is now and a vision of how it could be in the future. The subject which sparks most debate is supermarkets. Alnwick, which has just one major store, was told in 2003 it was not allowed a Tesco on the Willis Garage site at South Road. Sainsbury’s and Northumberland Estates last week confirmed ‘very positive discussions’ over a new store at Willowburn Avenue.

25 YEARS AGO: Friday, February 8, 1991

A newsagent in Alnwick has finally called it a day after nearly 60 years in business. Retirement came earlier than expected for 84-year-old Gladys Woolner, of Taylors in Bondgate Within, after she collapsed in the shop. She was found by her niece, Hazel Bray, of Alnwick, and was rushed to the town’s infirmary, where she is recovering well. “I’ve told her many times, only the good die young,” joked Gladys’s sister Olive Weatheritt, 79, of St Paul’s Court, Alnwick. The business was started in 1933 by Gladys and Olive Taylor. Gladys, of South End, Longhoughton, said: “We were so young when we started people said we would never make a go of it, but we were full of vim and vigour and anxious to get on.” Just two years earlier Gladys lost a leg when pillion riding.

50 YEARS AGO: Friday, February 4, 1966

In a tremendously exciting contest, Alnwick came from behind to pip Newcastle by 49 points to 46 in a round of Tournament, Tyne Tees Television’s popular inter-town general knowledge quiz. The programme was recorded before a capacity audience in the Guest Hall of Alnwick Castle on Monday night and screened on Wednesday night. The successful Alnwick team comprised Mr Hylton Young, Miss Lucy Grimes (Jane Hotspur), a journalist with the Northumberland Gazette, and Mr William Hugonin, the Duke of Northumberland’s agent. Newcastle was represented by Mr Charles Parish, librarian at the Literary and Philosophical Society, housewife Mrs Sheila Gourlay, and Mr Tim Hunter. Behind for most of the time, the Alnwick team finished on a high note.