Two bottles of Fairy Liquid came to an ingenious rescue yesterday when they unplugged a lorry stuck fast in the picturesque Scottish Borders village of West Linton.
A fully laden 20-tonne lorry owned by Jenkinson Forest Products pulled into the narrow confines of the village and couldn’t get out. As the pictures show, it was right up against the local bookshop and houses on the junction of Main Street and Deanfoot Road, missing the shop by centimetres.
The driver wisely got out and sent for help – he told locals that he had simply been following his sat nav. The police turned up and then recovery firm Barry Devlin Services also arrived, but no mechanical means could rescue the lorry at first.
After hours of blocking the village, it was the latter firm’s experts who solved the problem – they sent one of their men to the local Co-Op for two bottles of Fairy Liquid.
Some careful application of the washing-up liquid to the tyres and road, plus a very skillful piece of towing, saw the lorry emerge inch by inch from the blockage.
Three houses were damaged in the incident.
The National reporter Martin Hannan, who lives in West Linton, said: “It’s supposed to be a sleepy village but there’s never a dull moment – the previous evening we had the BBC filming their new drama One Of Us with Juliet Stevenson, John Lynch and Laura Fraser, round the corner on the village green.
“It wasn’t looking very clever until the Fairy Liquid did the trick - and yes, it was the mild green variety that goes a long, long way and got the lorry out.”
Main Street resident Deb Armstrong added: “While this episode provided a morning’s entertainment for some of us residents, the serious point is that the jam did block the main route through the village for four hours, and could have delayed the local fire engine from getting out.
“It’s not the first time that lorries have been sent along this road by their sat navs and blocked the roads – it’s very dangerous and something needs to be done before pedestrians get hurt or more houses damaged.”
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