RETIRED pharmacist Jim Hawley has a bird's eye view of Haydon Bridge and the A69 bypass from his home high on the hill above the town. He now rarely leaves the cottage where he has lived for 26 years as he is wheelchair-bound.

LOOKING more like the surface of the red planet Mars, this is actually moorland in Northumberland. The sky over the land at Grindon Farm, near Haydon Bridge, was turned pink in the aftermath of a wildfire that left 10,000sqm of land scorched.

EDUCATION bosses in Ponteland are collaborating on plans to form a controversial trust school.

By Ben Guy School bus routes for pupils returning to class today and tomorrow have been saved with a pounds 60,000 subsidy. Prudhoe-based Kimberley Coaches called in the receivers just before Easter, plunging a number of rural bus routes into doubt.

FIRECREWS battled a blaze at a farm building in Northumberland yesterday morning. The fire broke out in a hay and coal shed on Pundershaw Farm, Bellingham, Northumberland, at 2.20am. Crews from Bellingham, Hexham and Haydon Bridge battled to put it out.