Ruffling feathers on the A5

A swan The advantages of having a news editor who starts several hours after the rest of us were brought home today when nightwatchman Andy Rogers was caught up in an unusual traffic jam. Heading from his Wrexham home to our Telford head office, Andy assumed the hold-ups on the A5 outside Shrewsbury were caused by an accident.

But as he neared the scene he saw something out of the ordinary. Even if he was unsure of exactly what it was he was seeing.

Phoning in like the responsible journo he is Mr Rogers was slightly hesitant.

“Do you know what’s going on on the A5?” he asked.

“There’s a load of police cars. Two marked and two unmarked. Err. . . it looks like one policeman was holding down a swan.”

Turns out his eyes were not playing tricks on him and the battle was then on to get the story and avoid any puns about feathers being ruffled or creatures swanning off down the main road (we managed it).

Some wag did suggest the swan would have points put on its licence when it appeared before the beak. That didn’t go in either (Sorry about the headline on this blog though!).