Twittering on about local history

THE story of the Lamb family's unexpected landing in Southport came to light thanks to the modern-day internet "Twitter" phenomenon and another emergency landing.
On August 7 LookBack columnist Laura Jones received a call to say a microlite had crashed on Weld Road in Birkdale.
Upon arrival at the scene of the "aviation disaster" it became clear that there had been a false alarm, and Weld Road transpired to be the beach.
Put out by her unexpected beach adventure Laura posted an update on the internet site, where users sum up their thoughts in a single line of text, which read: "Mourning a pair of heels: Went out to microlite 'crash' on busy road - actually an emergency landing on beach - stilettos not ideal on sand"
To which Martin relied: "And on a similar note, it was actually an air crash of a test flight decades ago which led my family to Southport..."
From there the Lamb family story emerged.
Interestingly the reason the microlite had landed on the beach in the first place was because the pilot was using a map, which he had bought only three months earlier, which shows a designated runway on the beach.
Many years ago, this was the case, but nowadays the Civil Aviation Authority take a stern view of that kind of thing, since the practice was banned for safety reasons.
Happily, the pilot and his son who had landed because of a suspected engine failure were able to take off again safely, in the direction of Blackpool and LookBack happened across a fascinating story.
Laura and Martin can be found twittering about all things Southport at:
http://twitter.com/lauraAjones
http://twitter.com/martinlamb