By Mal Butler
A plucky duck had an amazing escape after being stuck in a drain for a fortnight.
Two members of the Underground Service Engineering team were called out to Sandford on Saturday evening after some quacking was heard coming from a drain on a local farm.
Frazer Lowe and Cole Grundy attended, and sent down a camera to see what the trouble was. Frazer said: “The owners said one of their ducks had been missing for a fortnight and it was only by chance they heard the noise.
“At first, I thought it was a prank call. But when we visited and sent down the camera, there it was!
“We spent a couple of hours gently trying to ease it along the drain but it was very stubborn. By now, it was too dark, so we returned on Sunday after making sure it was safe for the night.
“The next day we pumped water down to push it towards where it lives in the pond and, after another three hours, we finally succeeded. If we hadn’t got the duck out, our next job would have been an excavation to rescue it!
“After that, we made sure there would be no more opportunities for the ducks to get back into the drain.”
Thankfully, a quacking end to the drama.
Carole Dennett 
Tilly Walder