With the arrival of Geoffrey Malone as deputy editor in 1972, new blood and fresh ideas were injected into the paper.

Geof was known to the Coleman family, who owned the paper, as he had trained with Peter on the Portsmouth Evening News, but settling in Sheerness had never been part of his plans.

He'd spent a couple of years working in Botswana, followed by six months' backpacking across Africa from the Cape to Cairo. Arriving back home in Merseyside he had little time to contemplate his future when Peter made contact.

He said: "I planned a short stay in Sheppey, but somehow that stretched to five years during which the Times Guardian, as it has always done, attempted to chronicle the minutiae of life on the Island.

"On the basis that somebody, somewhere was interested in every little snippet we could write a sentence or two about, nothing was too small to cover."

The readers obviously liked the formula as there were not many homes without the STG at weekends.

Column inches then, as now, were devoted to the fight for a new bridge; improved hospital care; retention of maternity services; flood defences; local government reorganisation and the transfer of power to the foreign field of Sittingbourne; and three-tier education.

He personally became involved in the work of Sheppey Little Theatre, helping with the renovation from church hall to theatre.

The bulk of the heavy work was undertaken by teams of prisoners from Standford Hill, Eastchurch, but the project was undoubtedly a community effort. Once up and running, local writers and performers had their own stage and enthusiastic audiences.

Geof became involved in the setting up of the Sheppey Folk Club which met there regularly.

Meanwhile there were the issues of the day - the annual close-down of holiday homes, and fight by some residents to find alternative accommodation for three months.

There was the threat of crumbling cliffs; 14 miles of unmade roads; opposition to an airport being built in the estuary; fears about the bomb ship SS Richard Montgomery and the controversial building of a steel mill at the end of the High Street.

Naturally, the travails of Sheppey United FC also demanded coverage.

Geof added: "On Thursday afternoons, the old press would thunder into action for its weekly performance and woe betide us if we were late. If we were we would have to endure the caustic comments of the Island newsagents as they waited around to collect their bundles.

"Then it was time to repair to the True Briton with the entire crew when even more stories were produced over a well-earned pint."

It was Geof's proud boast that during his "term" he visited every pub, club and holiday park bar in Sheppey.

After five years, Geof took off for the Middle East and to India where he worked on The Gulf

Mirror and Khaleej Times.

Now settled in Dubai with wife Lorraine, and enjoying regular visits from daughter Amber and son Alistair, he remains involved in the media and looks back on his stint in Sheerness with fondness.