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

25 years ago

HOMER the hamster was making front page headlines in the East Lothian Courier on April 2, 1999.

A tiny hamster sparked off a dramatic rescue involving four burly firefighters after it disappeared under the floorboards of a house in Port Seton.

Homer, just three months old, was visiting friends in Port Seton with his owner, Graham Scott, when he became over-adventurous... and vanished.

Flatmates Marsha Lees and Angela Davie had offered to look after Homer while his owner was on holiday, so Graham brought his pet round to “make friends” with the two girls.

Disaster struck when Homer decided to explore behind the gas fire and discovered a hole in the floorboards which he couldn’t resist investigating further.

50 years ago

“BRAINWASHED” to give birth in Edinburgh was the claim on the front page of the East Lothian Courier on April 5, 1974.

Expectant mothers in East Lothian hit out this week at the withdrawal of delivery facilities at the Roodlands General Hospital in Haddington.

Medical authorities said the decision had been taken because the maternity unit was largely unused and there were staffing difficulties.

But women in the county claimed the small demand stemmed from the lack of specialist facilities at the hospital.

A spokesman for the Board said there had been meetings with the Lothians and Peebles Local Medical Committee and the consultant obstetrician providing the service at the hospital and there had been unanimous agreement that because of the lack of demand for the facilities at Roodlands and the difficulty in meeting the necessary nursing and midwifery requirements it was impractical to continue to provide for deliveries to be conducted at the unit.

100 years ago

DISEASE in East Lothian mines was being raised in the House of Commons, reported The Haddingtonshire Courier on April 4, 1924.

In the House of Commons, Mr Clarke (Peebles and South Midlothian) asked the Under Secretary to the Scottish Board of Health if he was able to make a statement regarding the disease diagnosed as spirochaetosis, or infective jaundice, prevalent in the East Lothian coalfield, and which had been responsible for a number of deaths and a considerable amount of sickness, and was he now prepared to include the disease under the schedule for compensation purposes.

The Under Secretary of Health for Scotland replied, “Inquiries in East Lothian and elsewhere in Scotland have not resulted in the discovery of any further cases.

“The inclusion of the disease in the schedule under the Workmen’s Compensation Act is a matter for my Right Hon. friend, the Secretary of State for the Home Department.”