A journalist who has retired after almost 50 years in the job is planning to return to work – to help her colleagues out in the new year!

Carol Frost joined the Ashbourne News Telegraph in 1955 as a junior reporter and retired last week as chief reporter.

She has become the face of the newspaper during her time there and has reported on how the town has grown and changed in that time.

She has also tackled hot topics and local issues in her regular column to keep the readers informed and amused.

Yet Carol can remember when things were a little different at work.

She said: “When I started out I came to work on my bicycle, and that’s how I visited my contacts. If they were out of range, because there weren’t that many telephones in a rural area, I’d have to write to them to get my story.

“I learned how to type properly too – when my tutor would stand with a ruler and would tap my hands with it if my eyes strayed to the keyboard. Thanks to that I type with more fingers than many journalist do now.”

She said that these days more and more local groups wanted their “two pennarth” of publicity – but that was perhaps because of newspapers extending their reach and demanding more and more news from contacts throughout their patch.

Local government had undergone more reorganisations than she could care to mention, with the rural council she first knew holding its meetings on a Saturday morning.

She said: “Ashbourne is very fortunate to have a local newspaper with its population being small.

“So much has changed in the town – the college has gone, the police house has gone, the driving test centre has gone, flooding from the local brook has been sorted out, and most importantly the magistrates’ court has gone too.

“My first office is now a flower shop!”

Despite volunteering for more work at the Telegraph after a short rest and re-group, Carol is also ready to spend more time at home and enjoy her retirement.

She said: “The first thing I’m going to do is clean out lots of cupboards at home!

“I’m also hoping to get back into practice on the piano.

“I’m having a break now, but I will continue to do a bit of work for the paper…”