Last week I was working on a page which is normally designed and put together by another member of the team. They let me get my 'hands on' every now and then, mainly due to holidays.

While going through the village news pages I ended up taking a trip down memory lane. It was a journey going back over more than ten years when my first involvement with village correspondents began.

My thoughts were sparked off by the decision of our Cullingworth correspondent Renee Fickes to relinquish her role. Renee, like so many others, has been a village 'corr' for a number of years sending in a varied mixture of material from her patch. My stroll took me back through many fond memories of meetings and conversations with community writers. I also recalled an incident - not on this newspaper - which led to my getting a rocket and acute embarrassment. I won't go into detail but it involved a bogus name being slipped into a report as a bet and not being spotted. I confess to getting cross with the village reporter for not spotting the error.

I suddenly felt rotten. The reason? A week or so ago I was talking with an old colleague who reminded me of a similar mistake I made when I was just starting out as a journalist.

To Renee, another public vote of thanks, and to all our hard working and dedicated correspondents a verbal bouquet and please keep up the good work.You are an invaluble link with the comminuty.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.