A couple who have been married for more than six decades have been reunited with their love letters 66 years on.
Eric Pashley and Winnie Pettinger’s love blossomed during the Second World War.
Now, more than 60 years, five children, 11 grandchildren and five great-grandsons later, the couple rediscovered the letters they wrote at the start of their courtship. They were found in a shed by a gardener at a Nottinghamshire stately home where Mr Pashley once worked. (PA)
Out of control
Two police officers have been suspended from driving duties after they stopped a suspected drink-driver and then wrote off his sports car by crashing through a garden wall.
The high-powered Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution was driven across a grass verge, then across the garden of one luxury home and through the neighbour’s garden fence before ending up on its side.
Both officers, who are under investigation, were found inside the vehicle, which was stopped in Hale, Cheshire. (PA)
Goats rescued
Two young goats stuck 60 feet up on a narrow ledge of a railway bridge for two days were rescued by a crane.
The female animals were thought to have wandered on to the ledge in southern Montana at night and then become too frightened to move to a wider pillar just a few feet away.
“The whole time, we thought they were going to fall off,” said Sandy Church, Rimrock Humane Society president. “These guys are just babies.” (PA)
Double transplant
The recipient of a rare double hand transplant has said he feels “fantastic” and can wiggle fingers on both his new hands.
Richard Edwards made his first appearance about a week after he underwent a nearly 18-hour transplant procedure at a hospital in Louisville, Kentucky.
The 55-year-old chiropractor lost seven fingers when his hands were severely burned in a fire in 2006. (PA)
Painted horses for road safety
Traffic police in Moscow offered rides on horses and ponies painted as zebras yesterday in an attempt to improve road safety and raise awareness among Russia’s notoriously careless drivers.
The police dispatched the fake zebras to several different locations in the Russian capital, where officials walked them over zebra crossings and handed out flyers to passing drivers.
Russian roads are notoriously dangerous and drivers still rarely give way to pedestrians.
Nearly half of all traffic accidents in the country’s big cities are caused by cars hitting pedestrians, and a third of those occur on crossings. (AFP)
Red phone toilet
A Somerset pensioner has come up with an unusual way to re-use an old red phone box - he has turned it in into a toilet.
John Long, 73, who lives near Taunton, has converted the phone cubicle, once a familiar sight on Britain’s streets, into a privy.
The retired salesman said: “I’ve done lots of projects, but this is one of the biggest. It’s worked out extremely well - better than expected. I’ve wanted a red telephone box for years and I didn’t have an outside toilet, so I thought I could combine the two. To be honest, I probably use it more often than the internal toilet now. It’s just so convenient.”
It is now fully equipped with a porcelain lavatory pan, hand basin, high-level cistern, frosted glass panes, a heater and even a red tennis ball on the end of the toilet chain, to match the box. (PA)
Crazy bereavement
A Japanese man drove the wrong way down an expressway for 90 kilometres and broke through five police barricades because his cat had died, he told police.
Tsutomu Mizumoto, 31, was arrested on the island of Hokkaido. Police said they responded to an emergency call about a car driving the wrong way on a motorway near the city of Otaru. They spotted the vehicle 15 minutes later and pursued the driver, ordering him to stop.
Mr Mizumoto ignored them and drove on, smashing through five emergency blockades and passing through a tollgate. He finally stopped when police detained him.
“I was sad that my pet cat died,” he was quoted as telling police. “I wanted to do something crazy.” (AFP)
Weird illegal ‘immigrants’
British border officials said they had stopped dozens of weird animals being snuck into the country – including a boa constrictor wrapped round a man’s leg.
The UK Border Agency said it stopped a passenger travelling through London Heathrow Airport with his pet snake concealed as part of its crackdown on smugglers bringing in animals illegally.
They said they regularly come across efforts such attempts, as they lifted the lid on their “weirdest finds”.
One was a briefcase full of dead, plucked pigeons, leading to suspicions they may have been bound for a restaurant. Other discoveries involved two highly venomous snakes. (AFP)