A weekly newspaper whose news bill about the discovery of a body was named the best regional press funny of 2009 by HoldtheFrontPage readers has accepted its ‘award’ with good humour.

The Welwyn and Hatfield Times won first prize in our end-of-year poll for its ‘Dead Man Found in Graveyard’ bill.

Wrote columnist ‘Charlie Boy’ Meynard in last week’s edition: “After the odd snub over the years, talk of awards in Times Towers is usually a touchy subject.

“But all that could change now, as the WHT has won a pretty prestigious honour.”

The bill, which originally appeared last October in relation to a story in the paper’s Potters Bar edition, won 40pc of the vote in our Christmas poll.

But Charlie goes on to reveal that the paper’s newsdesk did in fact take steps to avoid making a statement of the bleeding obvious.

“The worst thing is, I remember our bill-writer holding the conversation with the newsdesk in order to avoid the ‘body found in graveyard’ line,” he wrote.

“Unfortunately, the final version wasn’t any better!”