A double-page spread in the Liverpool Echo spoke volumes about teamwork between editorial and advertising.

Headlined It ad to be you, the special report by Paddy Sheehan pulled together five examples of how the top evening title had changes people’s lives.

And the credit was shared between the two newspaper departments.

Less than a year ago, Natasha Hamilton, (17), was a student. Now she’s one third of Atomic Kitten – the all-girl pop group who hit the top ten with their first single and rubbed shoulders with Robbie Williams and the Spice Girls at the recent Brit Awards.

Her big break came about through Debbie Johnson’s pop page in the Echo.

Former OMD frontman Andy McCluskey, who was putting the girl group together, told the Echo he needed a third girl to complete the line-up.

Natasha’s mum saw the story, Natasha auditioned, and her feet haven’t touched the ground since.

The spread also covered the stories of Terry Miles and Lisa Fenlon, who are getting married after Terry proposed through an advert in the paper; golden wedding couple Gordon and Millicent Bellis, who met when they both answered a 1947 Echo advert for a female singer and a drummer; and former nurse Amanda Wills, who answered an Echo advert to become a holiday rep. and has risen to become the only female director on the board of Airtours.

But perhaps the best story was the one which showed that the Echo gets it right – even when it gets it wrong.

David Cannell took out an advert in the Echo’s Heart to Heart column and asked to be described as a “26-year-old Lancelot”, a reference to his interest in horse riding.

But his request was misheard as a “26-year-old laugh-a-lot”.

Reader Dawn Cook loved this description and replied to the advert because it sounded as if he had a good sense of humour.

The couple were married last November during a dream holiday in the Dominican Republic.

Dawn admitted: “If it had said ‘Lancelot’ I wouldn’t have bothered because I would have thought he was smarmy”.

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