Selling a Flying Saucer

It's always a profitable excursion to visit the Archive, reached from AudlemOnline's homepage, which is run by the History Society.

Led by Celia Bloor, a team of enthusiasts regularly post new, well better described as old, items from newspapers and many other sources.

One of the latest features the only man in Audlem who is ever likely to sell, never mind own, a flying saucer. We speak, of course, of Billy Gibbons.

The Chronicle article from September 2002 starts: "For sale, flying saucer, one careful owner, only done 37 million galactic miles, will part-exchange!" Click on the image to enlarge it.

This was a short time after a rocket famously stuck out of the roof of his house which used to almost stop the traffic heading into Audlem from Market Drayton. It had been removed by Billy a year earlier.

The sale of the flying saucer was all down to his chickens. He explained: "The chickens lay their eggs in it, and unless I try to scoop them out with a pole I can't get at them, so it's got to go."

Curiously, many years later, Billy tracked down the flying saucer. It was in a yard in Yorkshire. AudlemOnline has seen the aerial shots and, we have to say, the Yorkshireman (we were going to say Tyke but are not sure if that's allowed under political correctness rules) can hardly be described as a "careful owner."

This article is from our news archive. As a result pictures or videos originally associated with it may have been removed and some of the content may no longer be accurate or relevant.