Did It Play "Nearer My God To Thee"?

DID IT PLAY "NEARER MY GOD TO THEE"?

From Newcastle, Great Britain, comes the strange tale of one Brian Reynolds.

Seems that the 23-year-old motorcyclist had been having a little trouble with the gearbox on his Triumph Bonneville. Try as he might, Reynolds just couldn't get the thing to flick through the gears as it should. Aggravating.

Then one day, the thing just seized altogether. Go no more. Kaput. That was all she wrote.

Reynolds, understandably, was a tad upset. He decided to drown his sorrows. But no pub for this chap. He simply rolled the Triumph over to a handy river and scuttled it.

Like Britain’s Titanic, the Triumph sank. Without a trace.

Almost.

A passerby witnessed the Burial-atriver and notified police. The bobbies, thinking they were hot on the trail of a gang of motorcycle thieves who had lately troubled the borough, dispatched a team of divers and a salvage crew.

The Triumph was raised and traced to Reynolds. There was a knock at his door. Much explaining. Reynolds produced the title to the bike.

Now, the police were a little miffed that they hadn’t cracked a theft ring. You can’t arrest someone for stealing hisown motorcycle. But what to do?

What they did, was arrest Reynolds for water pollution.

“We can’t have people dumping motorcycles in the river just because they don’t work properly,” an official explained.

Reynolds pleaded guilty, paid a $38 fine, coughed up $15 in court costs and hoped the matter was closed.

It wasn’t.

The police have billed him for floating the Triumph. “When our men are used for this kind of salvage job, we demand, the person responsible pays for the manhours that have been put in,” said a spokesman.

The Bobbies wouldn’t reveal the size of the bill, but allowed as how it would be considerable. “Just think how much a team of fully-trained divers would cost on an operation of this size,” the spokesman said.

Reynolds' comments, meanwhile, were not exactly printable.