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.

My home town had a freak hail storm in August in about 2000. The hailstones were the size of golf balls and broke the tiles on our kitchen roof. My sister had been abroad on holiday and when she landed she looked at the newspaper headlines in the shop and saw our small town on the front page.

Oh wow. Was she having an affair with the teacher?

Boudicca set up camp. Not much has happened since.

There's an extremely aggressive gander who's quite territorial over the road outside the farm. He hates everyone and everything with a passion and he often causes small traffic jams when he escapes because no-one (local) is daft enough to get out of the car to try and tackle him.

Barry Manilow and entourage dropped into the local pub for fish and chips.

If you live in my home town you'd probably remember these headlines.

1. Body found in cemetery.
2. Man guilty of defecating on postbox.

We'd not long moved up to a village in Aberdeenshire when the headline on the weekly paper was about the bus not turning up on the Saturday.

The following week said that the next weeks bus did turn up.

I wondered what I had gotten into...

A plane landed on the A40 near my house not more than a few weeks ago. Much excitement.

A lorry got stuck under the railway bridge, but that was a few years ago, before we moved here.

Fairly recently a girl was assaulted on the bus, the perpetrator was dealt with locally, and has since moved away.

When I was little literally nothing happened in our village of any significance, mainly due to everyone knowing each other's business.

One time there was this huge puddle which filled the entire late where we walked home from school. Someone called the local (county) paper and they actually came out and did an article on it.

Now decades after we have moved things have changed and lots more happen. There is a pretty well known skate park there and sadly there was a murder there a few years ago 😔.

Crossbow cannibal. Those poor women.

NCfor this because it will be obvious which town. David Fuller assaulted ,and more but can’t type it ,females in the hospital mortuary and murdered 2 young women in our town ! Absolutely sickening .

Horrible rather than exciting.

Young teenager died taking ecstasy. She was the only child of a single mum. So sad.

Woman died in a car crash as she swerved to avoid a deer in the road.

Constant filming for tv and film

Oh and a bomb went off in the centre of town

Ed Sheeran had lunch in our village pub a few months ago. People are still talking about it.

Mostly famous people being photographed on our beach and in our Michelin star restaurant.

Otherwise it's people protesting about sewage in the sea.

When we first moved to this area years ago (small west country market town), the free newspaper had as its front page headline - theft of a milk bottle in a village 3 miles away. It turned out to have been rolled away by an animal I think.

The Co-op filmed their Christmas advert in our village a few years back. I still struggle to understand why they picked us. DH reckons it was the big pavement outside the shop 😋

Picture postcard village in the Cotswolds we most definitely are not - in reality a line of concrete flat roofed shops in a Manchester suburb built in the 1970's.

They did make it look lovely, though. It's amazing what a bit of fake snow and a fake Christmas Market can do.

@determinedtomakethiswork

No. In fact, it happened a few years ago. She didn't know the victim and it was just a coincidence that it was our teacher's partner. She broke into the ladies house whilst she was out and lay in wait for her. Then she stabbed her repeatedly multiple times, and continued to live there until she got caught.

I live in a town with roughly 4000 people and Ed Sheeran grew up here and now lives here with his family.

I don’t know about ‘ever’ but in the town I currently live in, Harry & Meghan visited (back when they were active senior royals).

There have been a few sad things that are ‘famous’ but keeping it light - George Clooney and Samuel L Jackson have both filmed in our tiny place.

For many years we had a local mushroom farm.

It was easy walking distance for me.

Good grief nothing that has made the news... but if you speak to the right people you can hear all about the swinging and wife swapping parents of the sleepy village school in the 70s/80s.

I also bumped into a gone-midnight cross dresser on the walk home from a friend's. Its dead after about 10 round here so that was a surprise.

There was also a Tarts and Vicar's party held somewhere in the village.
I know this because they turned up at a PTFA Christmas fundraiser event in the village hall (definitely not tarts and Vicar's!) They looked very sheepish and made a swift exit. That was very funny.