Dramatic rescue pictures by Ipswich Evening Star photographer Andy Hendry were plastered across the national press yesterday.

The nationals clamoured to use photos of two boys who were inches from death when they were dragged from mud in a tense operation involving firemen, police, coastguards and a helicopter.

Proud editor Nigel Pickover was able to earn revenue from the sale of the exclusive pictures – but far more important to him was the publicity.

“I made it a condition of the sale that the papers had to use our newspaper’s name. Increasing our brand is hugely important to us,” he said.

“There was no way they would have got the pictures without agreeing to that condition, and we didn’t meet any resistence. The Daily Mail did say that if we ever used one of their pictures we would have to credit them in the same way – but that’s fine by me. We’ve reached millions of people with our brand today through those pictures.”

Andy, who has been with the paper for about six years, took the pictures on a Nikon D1 digital camera using a 1200mm telephoto lens.

The paper has only recently converted to digital photography.