Review of the Year: August

ST NEOTS experienced a duck invasion when the river was filled with more than 10,000 yellow biodegradable ducks in the first ever Great Papworth Duck Race. The race attracted hundreds of spectators and raised more than £20,000 to pay for a new equipment f

ST NEOTS experienced a duck invasion when the river was filled with more than 10,000 yellow biodegradable ducks in the first ever Great Papworth Duck Race.

The race attracted hundreds of spectators and raised more than £20,000 to pay for a new equipment for Papworth Hospital.

Fiona Cooper, head of fundraising at the hospital, said: "Papworth's first duck race was a tremendous success thanks to the hard work of our fantastic volunteers."

The winning duck won its owner £1,000 to spend on garden furniture.

VETERAN Conservative councillor and Earith farmer John Eddy died, aged 72, after a short illness.

Tributes to the affable former chairman of both Cambridgeshire county and Huntingdonshire district councils poured in from political colleagues and the Anglican Diocese of Ely, where he was also active for many years.

John Ackerly Penhall Eddy served continuously on the district council for 30 years, first joining in 1976, two years after the authority was formed. At the time of his death he was sitting member for Earith, where he lived in Meadow Drove.

FOUR-year-old George Brown from Huntingdon was in surgery for four hours after being attacked by a bulldog.

The dog, which had been re-homed from Wood Green Animal Shelters, had previously attacked George and two other children in May.

The American Bull Dog, called Finn, was returned to Wood Green and put down.

George had 200 stitches in his face and underwent plastic surgery at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge.

A MOTHER and her two children described how they escaped forest fires in Greece when their summer holiday went up in flames.

Jennifer Newman, from King's Ripton, said: "It was like a war zone with helicopters overhead and smoke and ash raining down on us."

Mrs Newman, her children, Mitchell, 11, and Samantha, eight, plus other family members, were staying on Halkidiki, where three fires devastated the peninsula.

Mrs Newman said her sister-in-law now believes her holidays are jinxed. "Last year in Spain their apartment was robbed and cash taken, and the year before there was a dead man on the beach.

"We have said we are not going to Tenerife next year because there is a volcano there.