It will be exactly 50 years in July this year (2013) since I went to work in a newspaper office. It was the Sheffield Star in the days of hot metal and manual typewriters and copytakers - women who took your copy from dictation over the 'phone - and paper layouts and a proper, horseshoe-shaped subs desk. I was the first-ever copy girl. A year later I joined the Doncaster Gazette as a trainee reporter, returning to Sheffield to finish my training in July 1965. I was covering local councils, sports days, school speech days (they don't have those any more), WI's and ladies' luncheon clubs. Exactly what I'm doing now in my so-called retirement, though this time it's for the D&S (Darlington & Stockton) Times. I'm married to Ian, former head of telecommunications at Oxford University. We met in Oxford in September 2003, married and moved to Askrigg in the Yorkshire Dales four years later. We have seven children between us, all grown-up, and two border terriers, Maud and Harry, who never will.