Famous faces from a West Yorkshire town came home to celebrate the local paper’s 150th birthday.

The Dewsbury Reporter welcomed guests from near and far to a civic reception and dinner at the Town Hall to mark the milestone and hand out its Lifetime Achievement Awards.

Among the guests were Baroness Betty Boothroyd, the first woman speaker of the House of Commons, Sky Sports commentator and ex-England rugby league player Mike Stephenson and Kazia Pelka, former Heartbeat and Brookside actress.

Star Trek actor Patrick Stewart, who started his career with the Reporter, was unable to attend as he is staring in Hamlet in Stratford.

His brother picked up his Lifetime Achievement Award in his absence.

Other award winners included Baroness Betty Lockwood, first chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission, Channel swimmer Eileen Fenton and Reporter journalist Margaret Watson who celebrated 50 years with the paper this year.

Larry Hirst, IBM chairman for Europe, Middle East and Africa, also gave a talk.

The Reporter has been marking the milestone throughout 2008 by trawling the archives to produce memory lane supplements and features.

Editor Hannah Ridgeway said: “It was absolutely fantastic – we’ve had so many nice ‘thank yous’.

“It was a great night, good speeches and a good meal. Local school kids set up a steel band outside to welcome guests.

“We’ve had an exhibition in the Town Hall of Dewsbury Greats and guests went away with a Dewsbury Reporter model car and a copy of the paper’s first ever front page.”

Comments

Walter Greenwood, co-editor McNae’s Essential Law (10/11/2008 11:57:21)
Congratulations to The Reporter. It is good to hear that it is still holding its own. Although it is now nearly 60 years since I left the paper, at the time Henry Wilson was editor, to go on to a daily, I still have happy memories of it. I shall always be grateful for the start it gave me in journalism

Walter Greenwood, co-editor McNae’s Essential Law (10/11/2008 11:59:44)
Congratulations to The Reporter. It is good to hear that it is still holding its own. Although it is now nearly 60 years since I left the paper, at the time Henry Wilson was editor, to go on to a daily, I still have happy memories of it. I shall always be grateful for the start it gave me in journalism