AN article in The Guardian reports that the Tate Britain gallery in London will be opening its doors until midnight for the first time in order to cope with demand for an exhibition of work by Yorkshire-born painter David Hockney.

The event sold more than 350,000 tickets before the doors opened in February, and has gone on to become one of the most popular shows in Tate Britain’s history.

The midnight openings will be held on the last weekend of the exhibition at the end of May.

THE Daily Express salutes Wayne Johns, from Tamworth in Staffordshire.

Wayne has become a Guinness World Record holder after playing pinball for more than 30 hours to help raise money for prostrate cancer charities.

ACCORDING to the BBC, the last of five gold artefacts hidden in Scunthorpe as part of an artistic treasure hunt has been discovered.

The replica ammonite shell was found by Beckie Allen, from Grimsby, at the base of a fence post in Scunthorpe's High Street East.

The objects were hidden by artist Luke Jerram for his installation Treasure City, with clues placed in paintings at the 2021 arts centre.

All five objects are replicas of pieces at North Lincolnshire Museum and were made from gold worth £1,000, but could be worth much more.

People had to study five paintings and solve the code within them to find and keep the artefacts.

THE Daily Mirror tells us that treasure hunters in Staffordshire have discovered what is believed to be the oldest Iron Age gold ever found in Britain.

The collection, which has been named the Leekfrith Iron Age Torcs, was found on farmland in the Staffordshire Moorlands.

Three necklaces and one bracelet, were found separately about one metre apart and experts believe they were made in the third or fourth century BC, making them approximately 2,500 years old.

Julia Farley, curator of British and European Iron Age collections for the British Museum, said: “This unique find is of international importance. It dates to around 400-250 BC, and is probably the earliest Iron Age gold work ever discovered in Britain. The torcs were probably worn by wealthy and powerful women, perhaps people from the continent who had married into the local community. Piecing together how these objects came to be carefully buried in a Staffordshire field will give us an invaluable insight into life in Iron Age Britain.”

Mancunian Andy Sykes came up with a great solution to rescue the family's pet hamster Fang after it got trapped down a pipe for three days.

The Daily Mirror reports that Fang got stuck in the pipe after darting through a hole in a skirting board.

Andy built a tiny ladder out of chicken wire so that the six month old pet could climb free.

MEMORIES came flooding back for 100-year-old former RAF pilot Ray Roberts when he took to the air in a Spitfire, reports the Daily Express.

Ray, from Margate, Kent, took part in the flight at London's Biggin Hill to help mark the centenary of the former RAF airport which played a pivotal role in the Battle of Britain.

He had to use a walking aid on the runaway to take his place in the legendary fighter plane.

Ray joined the RAF in 1940 and trained as a pilot but was injured the same year when his parachute failed to fully open after he bailed out of a Spitfire. 

He became a member of the Caterpillar Club, a group of servicemen and women who have jumped from a stricken aircraft and survived to tell the tale.