After more than 40 years as a journalist on the Hull Daily Mail, Anne Lightfoot has put away her notebook for the last time, and decided to retire.

In her time as a reporter on the Mail, Anne has spent more time in court than Jeffrey Archer and filed more stories than the rest of the paper's current editorial staff put together.

And she can even still produce most of the 1,813 notepads she has filled since joining the Mail on June 13, 1960.

Anne said: "Books and newspapers were always part of my world and since I was knee high to a grasshopper I had always wanted to be a reporter or a policewoman."

Despite her ambitions, after leaving college Anne became a secretary. And although she liked the job, she continued dreaming of becoming a reporter.

Encouraged by her mum, Anne went to night school to learn about local and central government.

She also wrote to local journalist Patrick McGee for advice.

He suggested she wrote to the Hull Daily Mail, and after doing so she was offered a temporary position as a copy taker with a view to becoming a reporter if she showed ability.

Within months she was given her chance in the newsroom as a trainee reporter - the first trainee the Mail took on.

Anne said: "It was as different as chalk and cheese from ordinary office work. Reporters were out and about all over, covering jobs of all kinds and I was on the edge, realising I had an awful lot to learn if I was to do the job as well as the reporters of the day."

Not long after joining the Mail, Anne began court reporting and, as a trainee, she covered the traffic and secondary courts, reporting on the less serious offences.

Her future husband, Derek Hilton, was responsible for covering the more serious cases in the magistrates courts.

Anne said: "You could say we did our courting in the courts. Our desks were next to each other in the office and Derek taught me a lot about court work."

In 1967 the couple got engaged and, because of an office rule which forbade married couples from working together, they kept it secret from the editor and news editor.

When they finally made the announcement they said that if one was forced to leave they both would, and the editor agreed to let them both stay.

In 1974 Anne took her only break from service at the Mail when Derek got a sub-editor's job at the Norwich Evening News.

She followed her husband to the paper as a specialist writer, but the move did not work out and less than two years later Anne rejoined the Mail and Derek became news editor at the now-defunct Scunthorpe Star.

Anne has been at the Mail ever since, and has seen the demise of hot metal and typewriters in favour of the digital age and watched hundreds of reporters come and go.

But now she has decided the time is right to leave the job she loves, and she will officially leave on June 15 - was chosen to coincide with her first day at the Mail.

Anne said: "I have had a thoroughly enjoyable life dipping into everybody else's lives, reflecting their good times and their bad and hopefully, helping other reporters learn the skills of the job along the way.

"But now I am looking forward to spending more time with Derek and having the time to myself to do the things I have always wanted to, but never had the chance. This is the time for me."

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