A reporter who retired after 42 years with the same paper has looked back at his career for a special feature.

Terry Horne, who covered the Ulverston area of south Cumbria for the North West Evening Mail, walked down memory lane to recall his personal highlights of being a reporter.

He told holdthefrontpage: “It was something my news editor suggested as I’ve met quite a lot of different people and personalities over the years.

“I wrote it over a couple of hours and remembered my personal favourites.”

Terry spent the first 21 years of his career as a printer before retraining as a reporter in the mid-1980s.

Among the gems of his career were interviewing Cliff Richard when he opened an extension to a YMCA centre, in Barrow-in-Furness.

Terry also recalled connections from his childhood growing up in London when he interviewed a pop star performing on his patch.

He said: “We lived on the same street as Helen Shapiro in Hackney.

“She used to walk past my house everyday and then a few years later there she was on Top of the Pops.

“I knew her older brother Ronnie – she came up here for a gospel evening and I knew the people from the church organising it.

“They put me in touch with her and I was able to interview her before she came up.

“She asked to see me afterwards (the concert) and it was like being old friends.”

Terry said he was proud of playing his part in championing local issues, in particular watching Ulverston develop into a burgeoning festival town.

Ulverston now has around 20 different festivals per year ranging from celebrations of Charles Dickens to a lantern parade which attracts up to 30,000 visitors.

At his retirement party £320 was collected in lieu of gifts to go towards restoring a local monument in need of £1m worth or repairs.

Now Terry is looking forward to enjoying retirement and plans to travel the UK with his wife Marjorie.

“I was not relieved to go at all,” Terry said.

“It was sad really but I had been looking forward to it.

“For 42 years it has been a big part of my life – it was a very emotional time to say good bye to everyone.”