A 132-year-old scoop provided the ideal front page splash for a special edition of the Medway News.

To celebrate the annual Rochester Dickens Festival, the paper delved into the files to reproduce its own 1870 report of the death of Charles Dickens – in a 2002 newspaper style.

The special edition – which featured an alternative front cover of the Friday paper – was on sale at the News’s High Street stall for the weekend-long festival, which attracts thousands of visitors.

News deputy editor at the Trinity Mirror Southern title, Simon Wells, said: “It is the first time we have had a stall at the festival for a few years and we wanted to do something a bit different.

“The story made fascinating reading and the reaction from the public was really positive, with lots of genuine interest in the report and the paper in general. The stall was really busy all day and we sold almost 700papers.

“It helped reinforce the message that the Medway News is – and always has been – the local paper for the Medway towns.”

The special edition was designed by Simon and he saw the project through to conclusion by dressing as a Dickensian paper boy, alongside Newspaper Sales executive Chris Rowden, to man the stall.

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