World’s Finest Journalism: Crowd gathers at town bridge by Tim Ward

It may shock those of you who regularly read my blogs, but I’ve got a degree in journalism.

I very quickly came to realise that journalism, in the most part, is long hours, poorly paid and you are one of the most hated people in the UK. So I haven’t become a proper journalist…yet.

However, it does mean that I never landed the provincial newspaper job that some of my peers have. I never had the chance to write stories such as this…

UPDATED: Crowd gathers at town bridge

BRIDGWATER nearly came to a standstill yesterday – when crowds gathered by Town Bridge to check out an unidentified object in the River Parrett.

Cars parked on yellow lines and on grass in a rush to see the mystery object. The news broke on this website and now a debate has broken out about what it might have been.

Andrew Coles told the Mercury he came running out of Central Motor Co thinking somebody had jumped into the water, and he heard rumours a body was in the river.

He said: “I think it was a pig or cow’s head. But I heard people saying ‘look, you can see a hand!’ But I think it was just the animal’s ears flopping around.”

Steve Chinn, from Central Motor Co, said: “I just went out to see where all my staff had gone. I saw them out there looking at this object.”

Adam Brame added: “The town was gridlocked with everybody coming to have a look. The town almost came to a standstill.”

Our story has been read by thousands of people world-wide and had been trending on Twitter. People tweeted “Breaking News from the UK” – please retweet.

Julie Benson, from Taylors Barbers, said he thought the object was a stone, while Jamie Meakin thought it was a dog.

But the consensus, supported by Adam Brame, Craig Little, and Mr Chinn and Lewis Teather was that it was a pig’s head.

Some people waited for around two hours and said they did not see the object removed and believe it is still in the river.

Mercury reporter Angela Brennan returned to the scene today and could find no sign of the object.

Coral Pople told the Mercury at the scene yesterday: “I’ve been here for 45 minutes. Everyone was saying it was a turtle – but it looks more like a pig to me.”

Police officers also attended the scene but left shortly after

Right.

This story, well, isn’t. But yet, even since I pitched this blog to the God of Shouts at Cows Towers it has grown. The story was merely two paragraphs. It’s now…well, more. It’s even trending on twitter.

What was originally going to be a whimsical blog taking a wry-look at a regional news story cannot exist.

The comments, the ones before the global phenomenon took off, were spectacular.

“my stepdad said it look like a calf or pig”.

“If it’s a pig it could still be alive but very tired – I hope someone has been sensible enough to get the rescue services or RSPCA.”

“perhaps its a wale or a dolphin washed off corse by the sunami in Japan? @cedarbox, pigs float so I don’t think its one of those. Pigs are lighter than water I saw a program about it on Sky3””

“There was a dead sheep in there the other day, maybe its that”

“no thats in langport now. I saw it at the weekend. It was definely dead. No breathing.”

“if it was a pig then it will just be left just like the cow last year which was reported to many people who didnt wanna know it was then out at steart rotted and even then the stinking carcus was left there.”

Bridgwater seems awash with dead animals – I think that’s the bigger story.

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