A newspaper which once counted Star Trek actor Patrick Stewart on its payroll is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year.

To commemorate the Dewsbury Reporter's landmark birthday, features editor Margaret Watson has been pulling together monthly nostalgia supplements to bring readers a taste of yesteryear.

It is a double celebration as 2008 also marks a half-century of journalism with the Reporter for Margaret.

Margaret told HoldtheFrontPage: "I have been writing about the old pubs and the people that worked here in the early days, the changes in the market place and the town centre.

"When the paper started in 1858 there were just no facilities in Dewsbury.

"There was no running water, or gas and electricity. It has been absolutely fascinating."

Every month she has been trawling through the company's basement where archived copies of the paper are stored to produce a themed look at the last 150 years, this month focussing on education in the area.

It has also offered readers a glimpse into the changing face of local newspaper reporting over the decades.

When public hangings were still legal, the Dewsbury Reporter would carry all the details, including how long it would take the criminal to die.

Court coverage has also changed, with many old stories about teenage couples asking magistrates for permission to elope and people who attempted suicide being brought straight from mental hospitals to court – still clad in dressing gowns and pyjamas.

Party plans are now in full swing for a formal celebration of the 150th anniversary in October with local dignitaries and famous people with a connection to Dewsbury being invited.

Among the roll call of former journalists to have worked on the Reporter are Patrick Stewart, whose vacant job Margaret believes she filled in 1958, and Daily Mail journalist Daniel Martin.

"I do a lot of public speaking about and promoting the paper," she added.

"We all should as journalists and we have to protect local papers.

"I should have written a book – perhaps one day I will. I think the local people would buy it."

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