What is the most exciting thing that has ever happened in your village or small town?

[Puffinshop]

Obviously when you live in a big city, newsworthy stuff is happening all the time. If you've lived in small towns you know that it's often slim pickings for the local papers and it can be quite exciting when something happens close to you. What's the biggest local news story you remember from your town?

The most dramatic thing that ever happened where I live now (in my memory) is the body of a whale washed up on the beach. Sadly it was already dead so there was no rescue possible but so many people went to see it - quite a grisly and depressing sight but also impressive to see an animal of that size I suppose. I didn't go, partly because I had the kids with me and I didn't think a dead animal was something they'd enjoy (or me tbh) but loads of people took their kids It was certainly quite an event and everyone was talking about it.

In my childhood village there was once a man running round at night dressed in a gimp suit and frightening the villagers.

Shit! I forgot that we had one of those. They then found it was too big to fit in the (stolen) van, so made off with it on the (stolen) forklift and, about a mile down the road, corned too fast and the whole lot ended up in the ditch.

Are you from the castle on the hill?

Just remembered that the local vicar where I grew up was no longer allowed to be a vicar after he started being too open about the fact he believed himself to be a white wizard. It was very funny.

I’m guessing Tebay?

Certainly not exciting, but the fact Fred West once lived locally (luckily before my time). Guess that meant he knew area well enough to know where it'd be easy to pick up a victim less than two miles away - it was something I grew up with knowing a girl had gone missing from a certain point without explaination.

Early 90s, there was a very famous "showbiz couple", the mother of the female half lived in our village. She was a very unassuming woman, taught in the local school.
The male half of said couple was caught partaking in some very distasteful behaviour which was plastered all over the front pages of the tabloids. The press descended on our small village for a few days, hoping to catch a glimpse of the devastated woman coming back to her mum's to lick her wounds. I don't think they saw her, but they did get a good view of the local boys mooning out of the window of the school bus.

In my current village, the running group had to be dispersed as the run leader was shagging several of the runners. There are now two rival running groups, which one you attend depends on which shagging runner you are better friends with.

My neighbour played a murderer in Coronation Street for a while.

A millionaire murdered the young woman he was having an affair with. He had bought a local castle and she was living there when he killed her.

Certainly not exciting, but very shocking. The murder of Jo Cox.

A battle between Julius Caesar's army and the Catuvellauni (Celtic) tribe. A while before we moved in.

Someone did a poo on someone else's driveway once. It was all caught on cctv.

That was a great day on the village Facebook page.

A suicide on the railway lines sadly

2005 Crossbow murder.

Small town beginning with M by any chance?

Funnily enough that's happened here too 😂💩

A double decker bus went under a bridge and the top came off. Luckily no one was up there

Small rural community I grew up in, a pervert that rang the (one) village phone box on a regular basis for a few months or so. I’m not sure when he started eg talking about his balls he got the result he wanted when teens raised on/ familiar with farms launched into graphic descriptions of castration.
Where I live now, very similar, preventing planning permission for a large estate of over priced shoeboxes on the outskirts of the nearest town.

Epicentre of a small earthquake a few years ago.

The nastiest man in the village was shot and killed in a pub in the nearest town. Was the one and only time I saw our grumpy butcher smile. That was about 20 years ago.

Since then the main things that excite locals are escaped farm animals and tractors driving too fast.

I once saw The Fonz walking out of the local shop. I thought it must have been a doppelgänger until I read he was filming fairly locally.

Several tv shows filmed in the small town.

Two Olympic medalists live here.

My neighbour built a very very large bomb

So large that we had to leave our houses for days

He seemed like such a quiet peaceful man always helping neighbours out when stuck
The police came and he ran for it and got stuck in a field 😳😳

@IHaveAskedYouThriceNow
No, not M. Clearly it's a fairly common crime!

Great username by the way. I have restarted watching Schitt's Creek for the zillionth time just the other day. David Rose is my fictitious gay bff.

Probably when it was bombed in the war.

@Puffinshop is your childhood village in Somerset? If not then that means there are 2 strange men out there terrorising villages in a gimp suit! He has recently been arrested and charged tho

Honestly, we get excited if someone new gets on the bus, then we all grin manically at them as if they've joined a cult.
Animals are always escaping but about 10 years ago a massive amount of gates were stolen and there were sheep, cows and horses everywhere.
I saw a donkey trashing someone's flower pots.
Also two goats that ambushed me Robin Hood style in the forestry during a heavy mist and frightened the absolute crap out of me.
The goats ended up going on a two week jolly causing mayhem and generally having fun.

I used to live in a historic city
I'd have been about 11/12 when the local kebab shop had some pissed up lads come in
A fight broke out,and one of the lads killed another with a machete

My ds (then aged about 12) once went to the shop for milk and witnessed a stabbing
Thankfully,the man pleaded guilty and ds didn't have to go to court

Another was a lorry that went down a street that was unsuitable for lorries and destroyed a grade 1 building

I moved away a few years ago and the night we moved here,we where just getting our bed made up for the night,when we heard a massive bang
We looked out of the window-nothing-so carried on getting sorted
Turns out,a local firework shop had gone up in flames-2 men dead