Published at 15:35, Sunday, 11 November 2012

INDEPENDENT editor Chris Blackhurst returned to his home town this week to help Barrow Rotary Club celebrate a landmark anniversary.

The Barrow-born journalist was special guest speaker at the club’s 80th annual charter dinner and ladies’ night at the Lisdoonie Hotel in Abbey Road on Thursday.
Mr Blackhurst, 52, attended Barrow Grammar School before studying law at Cambridge and then moving into journalism and becoming the Independent’s editor last year.
He told the Evening Mail he was immensely proud of his Barrow roots and delighted to be invited back by club president Mike Cumming for the special occasion.
“Barrow is home,” he said. “It’s where I grew up and it’s a wonderful place and if I can ever do anything to help Barrow, I will.
“The place has got great people, lots of fantastic values and it’s a working town with great natural beauty surrounding it.”
Mr Blackhurst said he saw clear parallels between newspapers and Rotary clubs and the community services they provided.
“All newspapers serve a community. In the case of a national paper like mine, that’s a much greater community.
“But in the case of the Evening Mail, which I’ve read since I was a boy, it’s enormously important to the Barrow community.
“And that’s also what Rotary do. They’re people putting something back into the community.
“They’re raising money for charities and for good causes locally.”
During his speech, Mr Blackhurst said many places would love to have the world-class engineering capacity of BAE Systems and the undoubted splendour of the coast on three sides, and Lake District as a backdrop.
Mr Cumming, 62, of Askam, said he was thrilled that Mr Blackhurst was able to attend.
“The guest speaker was the highlight of the evening,” he said.

Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk