BRITAIN S first crocodile farm was opened in Oldhurst. Farmer Andy Johnson, 36, set up a breeding programme after importing Nile crocodiles from Africa. He had eight crocodiles – the biggest of the creatures was an eight-and-a-half-foot long female calle

BRITAIN'S first crocodile farm was opened in Oldhurst. Farmer Andy Johnson, 36, set up a breeding programme after importing Nile crocodiles from Africa.

He had eight crocodiles - the biggest of the creatures was an eight-and-a-half-foot long female called Cuddles - housed in a specially heated building on his land.

Mr Johnson, who also breeds sheep, pigs and deer, was planning to farm the crocodiles for meat but said it would be three or four years before the product hits the shops, and up to 10 years before the farm was fully operational.

He said: "It all started as a bit of a joke but the more people asked me if I'd done anything about it, the more I looked into it."

TRADES unions met managers at Hinchingbrooke Hospital to raise concern over cuts and redundancies.

The hospital had announced a £5million deficit, some of which it hoped to save by not renewing temporary and agency contracts, allowing early retirement and leaving some vacancies unfilled

A hospital spokesman told The Hunts Post some senior medical staff were taking a pay cut and charges to hospital staff for food and parking were to rise.

It was hoped that compulsory redundancies could be avoided.

HUNDREDS of people turned out at a funeral to say farewell to Edna Betts, landlady of The Lord Protector pub in Huntingdon, who had died of lung cancer aged 62.

Many at the funeral had tales of how Edna had helped them with both money and support at times of crisis. Few knew, however, about the hard time she had as a little girl.

Giving the eulogy, her brother, Steven Nation, recalled his first meeting with her in a children's home in Cheshire when he was three and she was two days off being six.

He said: "She was introduced to the brother she didn't know she had. I arrived from another orphanage. She looked confused. Then she realised that I belonged to her. I was her family and from that moment on, she became my big sister."

LYNN Ashton, who cannot breathe without an oxygen cylinder, completed the London Marathon in five days, pushing her cylinder over the 26 miles on a trolley.

She raised more than £8,000 for the British Lung Association.

Mrs Ashton, 45, a grandmother from Hartford, said: "I'm over the moon, apart from when my children and grandchildren were born, it was the best time of my life. It was just magic."

Mrs Ashton, who has had damaged lungs since inhaling the fumes from a burning plastic tablecloth at Christmas six years ago, had previously walked from Huntingdon to Papworth in 2004 and Huntingdon to St Ives in 2002 - always attached to her oxygen supply.

SPEED camera plans were announced for the Forty Foot Bank Road.

Cambridgeshire County Council said it had asked Specs, the makers of average speed cameras to look at the road and give an estimate for the work, expected to cost £300,000. The proposals needed to be approved by the council's cabinet in December.

A FIND in a field brought back memories of The Hunts Post Bunny Fellowship, a children's club run by the newspaper between the 1930s and the 1960s.

Simon Irons from Diddington discovered a bunny brooch and wanted to know what it was. Readers explained that the club was so named because members collected pennies for the children's ward at the then County Hospital in Huntingdon. Originally, they had been asked to find "bun pennies" coins with Queen Victoria's head on them with her hair in a bun.