WE TAKE a look at the stories making headlines in East Lothian 25, 50 and 100 years ago.

25 years ago...

A FUTURE councillor was on the front page of the East Lothian Courier on July 17, 1998.

A Dunbar comedienne is hoping to team up with her hero Ken Dodd, in a comedy festival next year.

Twenty-five-year-old Gladys Chucklebutty, otherwise known as Donna Collins, has been asked by the comedian, famous for his tickling stick and Diddy Men, to send a video of her act to him with a view to performing at the festival.

Gladys has been performing her Ken Dodd inspired act for just two years but her love of him goes back to her childhood.

“When I was in Blackpool about three years ago I went to see him live,” said Gladys.

“It brought back all the memories.

“So I sat down and made myself a Union Jack hat like his and a Dickie Mint made with stuff like ping pong balls. It took me seven months.”

WHILE a champion bowler was making history.

Gifford bowler and Scottish internationalist Willie Wood MBE will be setting a proud record, having been capped 100 times for his country, when he steps on to the green at the Commonwealth Games in Malaysia later this year.

Willie, 60, of Walden Terrace, will be competing at the games for the sixth time, equalling the Scottish record.

 

50 years ago...

THE birth of a four-legged duckling was causing amazement in the East Lothian Courier on July 20, 1973.

Last century, Hans Christian Andersen created the legendary Ugly Duckling and this week yet another was hatched – not with dowdy feathers but with four legs.

Never in all his 18 years of duck breeding had Mr C. Winter of 10 Letham Holdings seen anything like it.

There it was, a little funny fluffy yellow bundle lying in the incubator on Tuesday night with these two extra legs.

Still recovering from the ‘shock’ of the discovery, Mr Winter took the freak out of the incubator on Wednesday morning and put it with the other newly hatched chicks.

 

and 100 years ago...

A BOAT became lost in thick fog off North Berwick, reported The Haddingtonshire Courier on July 20, 1923.

A party of two gentlemen and two ladies, who left North Berwick in a pleasure boat, had a trying experience.

Shortly after their departure, a thick haze enveloped the Firth of the Forth, causing them to lose their bearings.

Failing to return in the course of the evening, Captain Rickards of the local lifeboat, and others set out in a fishing yawl, and, after a long search, found the boating party sheltering on the Lamb Rock, nearly a mile seaward, and in the course of Wednesday morning they were safely landed at the harbour.