SIDELINES...

ROWLING IN IT

While clearing out unwanted items in her Blackpool home, Karen Rumsey, 59, found a copy of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Her daughter put it in a 50p book box in preparation for a car boot sale, but decided at the last minute to check its value. As one of 500 copies of the first Harry Potter book’s initial print run, the hardback was sold for £50,000 by Hansons auctioneers on 11 December. D.Mail, 4 Dec 2020.

BROADMOOR BREAK-IN

A couple were detained after attempting to break into Broadmoor hospital in Berkshire, the highsecurity psychiatric institution for the criminally insane. Broadmoor houses some of the most dangerous people in Britain, with a variety of severe mental illnesses and personality disorders, like Princess Anne’s attempted kidnapper Ian Ball and Kenneth Erskine, the Stockwell Strangler. Former residents include London nail bomber David Copeland, gangster Ronnie Kray and Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper. Police scrambled a helicopter and arrested a man from Essex and a woman from Ipswich, both aged 45. Sun, 7 Dec 2020.

LEGWORK

Justin Fernandes, 24, was walking home from work in Toronto when he was struck by a motorcycle, severing his right leg. He decided to have the limb preserved as a way to deal with the complex emotions associated with losing a limb and says this has given him a way to move forward. He received the taxidermied leg in time for Christmas. “You grieve however you feel is the right way to grieve. It’s your loss,” he says. Now he just needs to figure out where to display the severed leg. ctvnews.ca, 24 Dec 2020.