THE BEATING heart of Bolton is hanging up her clipboard for the last time.

Norma Rutherford, 59, is the architect of much of Bolton's events calendar and has been for the last 25 years.

She's the woman behind Bolton's well loved Food and Drink Festival, the annual Christmas Light Switch Ons and the millennium celebrations.

She even enabled the town to host the IronMan UK challenge.

Ms Rutherford began her Bolton Council career as an assistant public relations officer in 1992, she worked her way up through the council, even managing the Mayor's Office for a while.

On Friday, March 31, Ms Rutherford will be retiring from Bolton Council with a smile on her face after "thoroughly enjoying" her years there.

She said: "It's been a pleasure and a privilege."

During her time at Bolton Council Ms Rutherford has seen the Food Festival grow from a small tourism team led event to the cooking extravaganza it is now.

Ms Rutherford said: "With a limited budget I booked Simon Rimmer as a celebrity chef and a trailer mounted cookery theatre for Victoria Square for the first weekend and invited loads of other chefs to showcase."

Following that initial success the festival grew and grew.

Now it regularly commands such high profile chefs as Gino D'Acampo and James Martin.

She spoke fondly of helping to bring Songs of Praise to Bolton and setting a Guinness World Record for the biggest pants ever as part of the "Bolton Says Pants to Poverty" campaign in 2005.

In 2000 Ms Rutherford helped facilitate BBC Radio 1's One Big Sunday event.

She said: "It was fabulous. It was all free and I just remember seeing these waves of people and thinking we are never going to fit them all."

Ms Rutherford said: "The events have kept Bolton regenerating and reinvigorated and brought something to the town even as the retail offering has diminished.

"There's always something happening in Bolton.

"It's changed dramatically but I feel it's now back on the up. There's bright times ahead for Bolton and there's a lot of big developments bringing work back into Bolton."

Explaining her reasons for leaving, she said: "I was sort of getting to the stage where I don't want to do the early hours in the mornings and watch a big articulated lorry come in with an ice rink."

Ms Rutherford is looking forward to having her weekends back.

That does not mean she'll be stopping working though.

After a three month break and a walking holiday with friends, Ms Rutherford plans to put her considerable energy into another job.