IT'S been another important year for news - and your Citizen has been first to tell you quite a bit of it. Thanks to our readers and customers the Citizen has soared in popularity in the last few years and is now performing better than ever before - not a claim that can be matched by our rivals and we intend to get better in the new millennium.

See if you remember any of these exclusive front page stories.

In August The Citizen revealed that the police had battered their way into two pensioners Albert Street home in Morecambe by mistake in dawn drug raids. A 67-year-old man was putting on his false leg when the police battered his door off.

Earlier this December we exclusively told the story of a Lancaster man running into difficulties with lawyers from the Millennium Dome. Stuart Leach has built 'The Millennium Doom' by welding together 11 articulated lorry trailers. Inside is a home made but complete inter-active alien experience for kids.

Last month we told of the tragic search of Lancaster mother Margaret Dodd for her missing daughter Hayley. Australian police fear Hayley, a shy 17-year-old, is dead afters she went missing while travelling alone. The well known Lancaster family had moved to Australia to start a new life a few years ago. Two lighter stories we revealed recently included the mayor having a parking ticket slapped on her official stretch limo for illegal parking and the idea of a national comedy museum in Morecambe getting the thumbs up from the city council. Back in February we exclusively revealed that gas workers from Morecambe Bay production platform had to be evacuated after an outbreak of the deadly legionnaires' disease bug. In April we were first with the news that a management buy-out had saved more than 100 jobs at the still troubled Woodeaves textile factory.

Later that month we were your only local paper to tell of how four young Albanian asylum seekers had been deported from Lancaster Farms Prison back to their war ravaged home against their will. In May we were the only paper to report on a city council election build up row. Lancaster MP Hilton Dawson branded attacks on former council leader Stanley Henig as 'subtly racist.'

In July we talked to a mother of a 12-year-old pupil of Lancaster Central High School who was allowed to wander off sleep walking on the motorway on a school trip. Claire Eccles was found by a good samaritan truck driver who called her dad.

And, of course, we have reported many, many other stories extensively - including the Queen's visit to open the Eric Morecambe statue and the dramatic city council election results.

In October we even told our best kept secret. Lancaster charity Animal Care named a stray dog after the area's most feared newspaper columnist, Citizen Smith!

There was a lot more and don't forget to watch out for the stories we broke to you first to see how they develop. Remember the Morrison's deal with Frontierland? The overspend on Salt Ayre and the hate mail recently sent to unfairly dismissed council officer, David Christley. And then of course there was the wonderful response fromour readers, the real heroes, who kept us informed every step of the way with tip-offs and letters to help make our paper number one in the area. If you want to know what's really going on and the stories behind the facade of corporate press releases you know where to turn.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.