NOVEMBER started with the special announcement that former Coronation Street star Shayne Ward had been tasked with switching on Rhyl’s Christmas lights.

Ward, who played Aidan Connor in the soap, came to prominence when he starred on X Factor in 2005.

There was tragedy after a fire in Towyn which killed a woman and her two dogs.

The Journal reported that pensioner Irene Brown, 76, had been given a ‘lifeline’ after waiting for a procedure available in England but not yet in North Wales.

Mrs Brown had been waiting for treatment since May for leaking veins in her left leg. Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board said they had recently approved a proposal to introduce keyhole intervention surgery.

Thousands of residents joined in remembrance for the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day. In Rhyl, Charlton Taylor, the son of the late Lance Corporal Michael Taylor, read the Royal British Legion’s Exhortation.

There was anger as headteachers hit out at “appalling” grade boundary changes that left pupils without a vital C grade at GCSE. Major changes to the examination criteria by the Welsh Joint Education Committee (WJEC) have meant that pupils who sat the English GCSE examination in the summer of 2018 were placed at a clear disadvantage to pupils of the same age who sat the examination early, in the summer or autumn of 2017.

Towards the end of the month, in an exclusive interview, the Journal learnt the ins and outs of Rhyl new hospital, scheduled to open in 2022 on the site of the former Royal Alexandra Hospital.

A £40 million health and wellbeing campus, which aims to bring essential care services closer to home, will house a three-storey clinical facility and result in an old building being restored to its former glory.

Nick Gauseden spoke out about how his Clarks shoes fell apart while walking. The 75-year-old had to get his doctor to bandage his shoe to his foot so he could make his way back home.