DAILY Echo reporter Louise Dunderdale has been sent off in style – by the town crier of Wimborne Minster.

Chris Brown journeyed from Wimborne to the Echo’s Bournemouth HQ to say an official farewell to Louise, who has reported events in Wimborne for the last three years as well as producing stories and videos at our head office in Bournemouth.

The normally noisy newsroom on Richmond Hill fell silent as Chris roared out a “grant of free passage in perpetuity” for Louise, originally from Aberdeen, through Wimborne and its environs.

“Mistress Dunderdale of the Scotts has served our community with thought, care, good humour and fine kidney, in her arduous duties as correspondent in our noble town of Wimborne Minster,” roared Chris. Louise will soon be plying her trade in London, reporting events from the House of Commons, the Mayor’s office and on other London-based political events for a series of newspapers in London and Kent and a London-based website.

But when visiting East Dorset, she can count on the support of Chris and his colleagues in the musket-carrying Wimborne Town Militia to pass unhindered through “turnpikes, toll houses, trayened band pickets and other such barriers to free movement.”

“Should news reach our ears that this order has been ignored then beware the wrath of our Town Militia shall search ye out and beet your breeches like never before!” he warned.