Glenda Whitehill was just 17 when she left her home in Scotland for a junior reporter's job on the STG. She remembers her time on the Island.

More than any of the stories I went on to write, including many features as women's editor, I remember the kindness and support of my colleagues and the wonderful Sheppey people.

Foot-in-the-door was not something we had to do much - the Islanders expected us to turn up and report on their trials and tribulations. The paper was a huge part of local life, and I expect it still is.

It was my job as the junior to do the wedding and obituary reports. The latter involved going round to the undertakers to get details, and I was always terrified in Hogben's just in case I saw a dead body!

In those days the STG published all the floral tributes and I dreaded leaving one out or getting some of the detail wrong. I didn't really appreciate that they were the very stuff of local gossip!

I recall two bad floods in the 1970s, the first of which ruined all our paper bales in the old Railway Street printing works.

It was literally all hands to the pump and we managed to get the paper out, full of stories reflecting community spirit and great stoicism.

The boss in my day was Dorothy Coleman, a great lady who kept up high standards and watched the pennies.

Girl reporters were not allowed to wear trousers, and she inspected your notebooks and typewriter ribbons before you were allowed to get new ones.

I spent about seven years with the old Walter J. Cole newspapers - they were among the happiest of my life, setting me up with training and skills that have forged my career.

l Glenda Whitehill (later Glenda Johnson) went on to spend 13 years with the Kent Messenger, the last five as news editor, and nine years as assistant media services manager with Kent Police. She returned to Scotland six years ago and is a media and PR consultant.

When I joined the paper, Joe Morris was editor and there were two reporters - Colin Steele and I shared a typewriter and a phone in a top room above the shop in the High Street. At the back was the linotype and a bookbinding business.

When Ronald came, he and I didn't get along too well and I went to North East Kent Times (NEKT), where my office was a section of a tobacconist shop at 6 High Street, Sheerness.

Married with disabled daughter Sharon and her younger sister Linzi to care for, I became a full-time mother, but still wrote bits for the Times Guardian.

In 1975, after 11 years working for Abbotts, during which time I helped produce the in-house

newspaper, I was invited to return to the Times Guardian by Mrs Coleman and Peter.

I accepted and worked with editor Geof Malone and sub-editor Roger Fowle and alternated between periods in Faversham and Sittingbourne, where we launched the Sittingbourne Extra in 1976.

During this time I worked with chief reporter Jackie Fowle, reporters Glenda Johnson, John Nurden, John Hammond, Jan Thom, Philip Cole, Jane Eggleston, Caroline Owen, Shirley May, political reporter Roger Hermiston, angling writer Tony Reed and sports reporter Garry Nutting.

From 1987, when the KM took over, I worked under editor Duncan Marsh and with Sittingbourne Extra editor Peter Mastin, news editors Lynda Mitchell, Jill Prescott-Decie and Jon Parker.

Sports reporters were Mark Bristow and Mike Rees and the news reporters were Caroline Owen,

Judith Webb and Alan Rook.

Les Brightman, Colin Bourner, Terry Scott, Marcia Newman, Barry Hollis and Mike Whiting were photographers. I retired in 2000 but have since enjoyed writing the Memory Lane.