A journalist who started as a reporter covering one of the most notorious murder cases in South Shields has celebrated 40 years with its daily newspaper .

Janis Blower was 18 when she started working at the Shields Gazette in August 1971 and has worked as women’s editor, news reporter and assistant news editor.

She now writes a one-page daily column five days a week, covering local issues, such as the proposed demolition of a 1960s building.

Gazette staff celebrated the landmark with a ceremony in the newsroom at which Janis was presented with a framed ‘front page’, recalling her four working decades, and a bouquet.

Of all the stories that Janis has covered, one in particular sticks in her mind: “There was murder case called the ‘Torso in the Tank’ – a headless body was found in a storage tank in a local ammonia storage site,” she said.

The body was eventually named as that of 17-year-old Eileen MacDougall in the late 1970s. Janis recalls camping all day and night to get information as police came and went from the site.

She told HTFP:  “When I first started there were many people who had been there since the end of the Second World War who I learnt a lot from. I will always be grateful to them.

“When I began it was still hot metals and typewriters. The way we do it now would have been inconceivable then and would have seemed like another world.

“On my first day at the Gazette, I never thought for one moment that I’d be here 40 years later.

“I suppose that’s a tribute to the people I have worked with over the years – many of whom I remember with great affection.”

Gazette editor John Szymanski described  Janis as a ‘passionate ambassador for South Tyneside’, adding though technology had transformed the industry over the years, Janis’s skills as a writer remained undimmed.

He said:  “The Shields Gazette is extremely fortunate to have someone of her calibre. Her role is wide and varied – whether helping readers reunite with long-lost relatives, recalling past places and events for posterity, or looking to the future with a keen eye and a disapproving critique, if so needed.

“Her sharp writing skills and highly-intelligent prose, wry observations and social commentary has deservedly won her a legion of fans – and long may she continue to do what she does best in a job she clearly excels in.”

Janis, 58, now works part-time at the paper and hopes to stay at the Gazette until her retirement