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

25 years ago...

‘DROVE truck clear in blaze drama’ was the front page headline in the East Lothian Courier on September 4, 1998.

An engineer was hailed a hero yesterday after braving an inferno to drive a truck clear before its fuel tank exploded.

Vandals were being blamed for the blaze at the transport firm James F. Guy and Son, Hospital Road, Haddington, during which an articulated trailer with 15 tons of baled straw blazed throughout the night.

The firm’s engineer, James Reilly, was called from his home at nearby Haldane Avenue by police and, supervised by firemen, managed to drive clear an articulated lorry unit threatened by the blaze.

“It was very brave of Jimmy,” said transport manager Ralph Hughes later.

50 years ago...

A NORTH Berwick cafe was destroyed by fire, reported the East Lothian Courier on September 7, 1973.

A build-up of gas is believed to have been responsible for the fire, which completely gutted the Carrington Café at North Berwick on Wednesday.

No one was injured as the café was closed at the time.

The owner and his wife had a particularly lucky escape, having left the building about 15 minutes before it burst into flames.

The fire started so suddenly that people living and working in adjoining properties did not know the High Street café was on fire until policemen asked them to leave the premises.

Mr Hamish Ferguson, whose toy shop is next door to the café, told the Courier: “I had just shut the shop and was going round into the lane for my car.

"There was nothing to be seen at all and the place was dead quiet.

"By the time I had backed my car down Balderstone’s Wynd, seconds later, I saw smoke billowing out at the back of the café.

"At first I thought it was my shop. I ran the car round the front and by the time I got there the place was a mass of smoke and flame.”

and 100 years ago...

THE long arm of the law eventually caught up with a sneaky Yorkshireman, told the Haddingtonshire Courier on September 7, 1923.

A young man belonging to Kirklington, Yorkshire, was alleged to have obtained food and lodgings at Dunbar last week by false pretences, and with having bought a motor coat without intending, it is alleged, to pay.

He got clear away from Dunbar, but the police there telephoned to Berwick late in the evening, giving a description of the wanted man.

The man had been seen in Berwick on Monday night by the police, but as the telephone message had not then come through, they paid little attention to the man.

The trail was followed up on Tuesday morning and the man was apprehended.