The body of 21-year-old Nathan Fleetwood, who went missing after attending Shrewsbury’s game with Lincoln City last month, has been found by underwater search teams – as a community’s hearts collectively break.
The 21-year-old was last seen in the Shropshire town of Shrewsbury in the early hours of Sunday, March 27, mere hours after he had attended Shrewsbury’s League One match against Lincoln City at Montgomery Waters Meadow.
A search effort began in his local community as people attempted to locate Nathan, and the appeal reached Lincoln as fans who went to Shrewsbury were encouraged to retrace their steps and see if they could help find him.
The search ramped up some three weeks after his last sighting, with West Mercia Search & Rescue sending out specialist kayak teams to search the river for “a high risk missing person”.
Tragically, the search team confirmed the news nobody wanted to hear, that on April 15, Nathan Fleetwood’s body was found in the river under the Greyfriars Bridge.
West Mercia Search & Rescue deployed searches on nine separate occasions, totalling around 500 hours, in their quest to find Nathan.
A spokesperson for the team said: “On Friday, the team were continuing their search for Nathan Fleetwood, when we located a body in the River Severn. The team were then able to perform a respectful and dignified recovery to bring the body to shore.
“Although no formal identification has taken place, the team would like to send their heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of Nathan and the wider Shropshire community at this very difficult time.”
Tributes were heartfelt, and Nathan’s beloved Shrewsbury Town will hold a minute’s applause during their game with Doncaster Rovers on Monday, April 18, as a mark of respect for Nathan’s life.
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Nominations are open for schools and education settings to be recognised in the 2022 Lincolnshire Education Excellence Awards.
The event is organised by Stonebow Media, publishers of The Lincolnite, to celebrate the best school and teachers in Greater Lincolnshire.
The headline sponsors making the awards possible are Lincoln College Group.
Twelve categories are now open for nominations. The deadline for nominations is June 3, with a judging lunch scheduled for June 7.
Nominations are open from parents, carers, friends, families or education settings themselves, so if you know someone who deserving of winning now is the time to vote!
The awards ceremony will be held at the Engine Shed on July 7.
It’s been a week since the controversial statue of Margaret Thatcher was installed in Grantham’s St Peter’s Hill.
The £300,000 bronze monument immediately caused a stir and debate from both supporters and opponents of the first female Prime Minister of the UK.
Within hours of its 7am installation last Sunday, it had already been egged by a man later revealed to be 59-year-old Jeremy Webster, a deputy director at the Attenborough Arts Centre at the University of Leicester.
Mr Webster’s mother-in-law recently described his actions as “childish”.
Quoted in the MailOnline she said: “Margaret Thatcher lasted a long time in power. She was a trailblazer as the first woman prime minister and she had such energy, even though I know she slept very little.
“I’m very surprised to hear about all of this [egg throwing]. I’m going to have to call my daughter. I wouldn’t have thought Jeremy would be the sort of person to do this. It seems very childish to me – he has a responsible job.”
There have been reports of other antisocial behaviour taking place including people urinating up the statue, but investigations into these are yet to be confirmed by officials.
Away from the statue itself, others took to social media to react to the new monument.
Twitterer @BolsoverBeast thought Mr Webster’s actions should be expanded as a way to… get more people involved?
I think it would be a good idea to put Thatcher’s statue on a low loader and tow it slowly around the country so that we all have a chance to throw something at it. pic.twitter.com/uftMqr0LgR
— Chloe Schlosberg (@ChloeSchlosberg) May 19, 2022
Some called back to the fate of other statues
@Irritatedllama called back to the fate of slave trader Edward Colston who was thrown into the Bristol Harby in June 2020.
It's absolutely disgraceful that people are throwing eggs at the Margaret Thatcher statue in Grantham! We need to deploy a taskforce to give it jolly good wash!#Granthampic.twitter.com/RKftKUls4u
It wasn’t long before a parody account of the statue was set up on Twitter – nor before “she” was interacting with other parody accounts.
It was awful. I could see almost all of Grantham
— That Statue of Thatcher (@thatcher_statue) May 18, 2022
A… positive view?
There were supporters of the statue, however, Darren Grimes from GBNews was one of the few popular posts calling on people not to “give in to threats of petty vandalism”. He later posted the statue should be in parliament – where it was previously rejected from.
I honestly think Margaret Thatcher would have found this first round of petty vandalism of her statue to be utterly hilarious.
The statue looks absolutely glorious.
Almost a decade on from her passing, she’s still winding them up!
Some, like @Jonnyhibberd were more measured in their response.
I don't see a problem with a Thatcher statue and I also don't see a problem with people throwing eggs at it. Thatcher is an important part of our history, and so is what a lot of people thought about her.
— Jonathan Hibberd 🇺🇦 (@Jonnyhibberd) May 18, 2022
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