And now for the news.

Byline: Tony Pogson ,

It was a strange world 50 years ago when the brash newcomer called commercial television broke into the rather dull, monopolistic and monochrome world of our home screens.

The BBC was not used to competition and nowhere was the impact felt more strongly than in news coverage. ITN relied on fast, US-style coverage with reporters making a point of signing off from exotic locations. Even the break for advertisements was made to seem like an advantage. Eventually the BBC was copying all - including making its own natural breaks where there was no ostensible reason.

The first editor Aidan Crawley - ex-Daily Mail, former MP and wartime fighter pilot - introduced the idea of newscasters in place of newsreaders, trusted faces instead of the BBC's somewhat anonymous announcers.

A new book by Andrew Montgomery, ITN 50 Years Of News, is a celebration of that half-century, seeking to give an insight into the triumphs and tragedies, the great stories and the piquant little details.

But woven through the story are the familiar household names who were with us, almost a part of the family, as the events of our lives unfolded.

Today with Huddersfield journalist Nina Hossain part of the team, we have even more reason to take an interest in the presenters.

Nina, originally from Taylor Hill and the daughter of psychiatrist, the late Tabarek Hossain, originally from Bangladesh, who set up the Kirklees Alcohol Advisory Service in the town centre, made her national debut last year when another female presenter, Mary Nightingale, was leaving to have a baby.

Now Nina, who started her career with Border Television in Cumbria, is one of the glamour girls of television. She has been described as the "Asian Angelina Jolie", been borrowed by the BBC for their Hard Spell programme and appeared in a cameo role in a feature film Trauma starring Colin Firth.

But she still insists she is most at home in a busy newsroom, keeping her cool when all around are losing theirs.

She is merely one of the newest ingredients in a story which has thrown up four ITN knights - Sir Christopher Chataway, who read the first news broadcast but is still more famous as a pacemaker for Roger Bannister's first sub-four-minute mile; Sir Robin Day, one of several deserters to the BBC, who achieved lasting fame as a political inquisitor and the host of Question Time; Sir Alastair Burnet, former Daily Express editor and long the authoritative voice of ITN; and Sir Trevor McDonald, who has received more awards and honours than any other news broadcaster in Britain.

Just one of them is an OBE. Sandy Gall and Martyn Lewis, by contrast, rated CBEs.

Many of them were women, a good few deserted to the other side (the BBC), but continued repetition of their names and pictures a few hundred times a year made them household names.

Lynne Reid Banks was ITN's first female reporter; Barbara Mandell the first woman to read news on British TV.

There were the glamour girls, Anna Ford and Selina Scott "Forces Sweetheart of the Falklands campaign". Others had interesting achievements: Elinor Goodman, political editor until July this year; Carol Barnes, former managing editor of Time Out magazine; Julia Somerville, formerly of Woman's Own who in 2003 was appointed chair of the advisory committee of the Government Art Collection; Fiona Armstrong who wrote a book on fly fishing.

Who can forget Reginald Bosanquet whose cricketer father invented the googly (it's still called a Bosie after him in Australia); Alastair Stewart, a former deputy president of the National Union of Students; or Andrew Gardner, who expired a week after the last News At Ten broadcast?

The book covers all the amazing stories that have been packed into that half century, plus some of the quirky little pieces that ITN has specialised in finding - all backed by pictures from ITN stills and the British PathA archives.

* ITN 50 years of news.Andrew Montgomery/ESP Publishing. pounds 16.99 hardback