LOOKING back to the week that was October 7 to October 13, fifteen years ago...

A UNIVERSITY lecturer spoke of her happiness after winning a three-year legal battle to reclaim the £2m family farm left to the RSPCA by her parents, in October 2009.

Christine Gill wept with relief after a judge ruled that the will which handed 287acre Potto Carr Farm, in Potto, North Yorkshire, to the animal charity was invalid.

Read more: 199 years ago, south Durham gave birth to the first modern railway

Speaking to The Northern Echo after the hearing, Dr Gill, 59, said: "I'm happy, but it's also a tremendous relief to get this decision.

"I now want to get back to a normal life. We have been in limbo for three years waiting for something to happen, waiting for court appearances and waiting for the judgement."

Dr Gill said she hoped to begin farming again at the farm and one day hand it to her 12-year-old son, Christopher.

Dr Gill's mother, Joyce, and her father, John, signed mirror wills in 1993 that left the farm to each other and then to the RSPCA after they both died.

Mr Gill died in 1999, but Dr Gill only found out she had received nothing when her mother died seven years later.

The judgement, handed down at the High Court in Leeds, ruled that Dr Gill's mother suffered from agoraphobia and was "coerced" into signing the will by her "domineering" husband, John.

A theme park employee who took on the Land's End to John O'Groats challenge after recovering from cancer made a stop at the park to greet well-wishers and gather support for his cause.

Steven Fort, a health and safety officer at Lightwater Valley, near Ripon, was diagnosed with prostate cancer last year and, after undergoing surgery, made a complete recovery.

He decided to take on the End to End cycle challenge to raise £2,000 for Cancer Research UK.

He made a stop at the theme park, which is almost at the half-way point of the journey.

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A museum dedicated to the world's most famous vet gained a new exhibit.

A replica nameplate of a new train serving North Yorkshire was presented to the World of James Herriot centre, in Thirsk.

The name James Herriot had become a regular sight on the train journey between London and Sunderland since one of Grand Central Railway's Class 180 trains was named after the vet that summer.