David Burrows: The end. Full stop. Over and out.

I'm in a slightly reflective mood, you see. That's because, after 14 years I am hanging up my trilby with the press card tucked into the band and leaving Shropshire newspapers.

What's that? I don't look old enough to have been anywhere for 14 years?

Why thank you. You're right. But 14 years it is (I still remember my interview. It was July 25, 2000. I remember it because it was the day Concorde crashed, killing all on board. Those things tend to stick with you.).

As you might imagine, in those 14 years I've covered a lot of events - both fun and the not so fun.

Almost as soon as I'd started, or so it seemed, I was knee-deep in flood water cover the 2000 floods. We were told it was a very rare event. Which will be why I was back in flood water in 2002. And 2004. And every year since. Or at least that's what it feels like.

I've had hate mail. My favourite referred to the aforementioned floods and started with the rather brilliant opening line: "David - grow up!"

My crime? I had referred to the River Severn "bursting its banks". I was informed by the anonymous reader that rivers don't burst their banks, they overflow.

The letter concluded almost as brilliantly as it opened: "I'd like to stand you next to a river that DID burst its banks."

More recently I was described as "muslim lovin scum" for writing in support of an application for a Muslim prayer centre in Shrewsbury.

I have even been sent overseas on journalistic duty. With my photographer colleague, I was dispatched to Ireland when a couple abducted their own children from the care of social services. The only problem is, while we were in Ireland, they were in Spain.

I've interviewed some famous people. Most notably one of my heroes, Queen guitarist Brian May. If this has come as news to you, then you are the only person in the Western hemisphere who has not heard the story.

I've had some great press trips. I've been to New York. I've been whale watching in the Bay of Biscay and seen wild dolphins close up in Israel.

But, naturally, there have been some tough assignment, too.

Covering the Hilda Murrell murder trial ranks among the toughest of those, but it also ranks as one of my proudest moments in journalism. The same goes for the horrific Shrewsbury explosion. I was the first journalist on the scene and nothing had prepared me for the devastation. Our coverage of that terrible event still makes me proud.

All in all, it's been an eventful 14 years.

I wouldn't have missed a second.