I Didn't Have The Foggiest!
I have relatives who live in Blackpool and so have visited the lovely (charvery) place many, many times throughout my life. I always used to stay with my Grandparents in my younger years and the best thing, without a doubt, was that Blackpool tower was visible from my temporary bedroom.

It started one day when I must have been about, ooooooh lets be generous and say, 5. I awoke one morning and looked out of my window full of expectation and, to my horror, Blackpool tower was gone! I raced downstairs and told my Grandad of my shocking discovery. He looked out of the window and 'ahhhh'ed in recognition. "They've taken it down to clean it son." he said, full of authority. Naturally my five year old mind never questioned his undoubted wisdom. After all he was ancient so he must know everything. He saw the sad look on my face and so cheered me up by telling me they'd been doing it for ages so they were really good at it and it'd be back up before tea time. When tea time came around I'd forgotten all about it but just before we ate my Grandad whipped back the net curtains with a 'tadaaaahhh' and, lo and behold, Blackpool tower was back up. Yay!

This happened numerous times over the course of my childhood, amazing me greatly every time, but it all came crashing down when I was about 13. Walking down the streets of Blackpool with my older brother he suddenly stopped and said "Bloody hell! Blackpool tower's disappeared!" I shook my head at the naive fool and looked at where it should be. I think I'd made it as far as "Don't worry, they'll have just taken it down to clea..." when I saw the vague outline of it through the fog and realisation suddenly dawned. Being by the coast, it gets foggy pretty regularly in Blackpool. My brother was looking at me like the idiot I was, not expecting an answer to his pathetic joke. He gleefully retold the whole episode to my Grandad when we arrived home who, thankfully, was laughing too much to give me a clip round the ear for calling him a total bastard.

The best bit was just last year. It was roughly five years since my Grandad had died and I was walking round a foggy Blackpool with my Godson sitting on my shoulders. Suddenly he piped up with "Why isn't the tower there today?". "Oh they've just taken it down to clean it son." I replied with the biggest smile on my face.
( $$ ✅, Mon 9 Jan 2017, 18:29, 4 replies)

Not my story but my dads
He was in a juicer after work when some guy burst through the doors.
It was Douglas Hurd, topless. He shouted, "Who's the hardest person here?"
Some meat head replied, "I am you Mr Whippy haired twat."
Douglas walked over and picked up the guy's pint glass then smashed it over the bloke's head.
He went down like a sack of shit.
Hurd then shouted, "Who's the second hardest person here?" No one replied.
"Thought so," Hurd said.

He lit up a cigarette and walked out.
( $$ ✅, Tue 10 Jan 2017, 12:33, 2 replies)

Jonny Rocco
The bloke dressed like a gangster of the 1940's and always carried a violin case. He used to patrol the pubs in Openshaw and Manchester from 1980 until about 1994 I reckon. The rumour was that inside the case he carried a gun and as a young impressionable lad he certainly had an aura about him. He got in a scuffle with some lads who tried to nick his gun at which point the case opened and a large of amount of porn was deposited onto the pavement. I lost track of him after that but am reliably informed he carried on regardless until he passed away.
(chovnik, Wed 18 Jan 2017, 14:41, Reply)

this one scared the shit out of me when i was about 17 and learning to drive
I grew up quite near the peak district, so it was an easy place to go for practice drives. One day a friend told me a story about a woman who was driving past the Cat and Fiddle (triva: England's second highest pub) just as the afternoon was slipping into evening. Darkening shadows were stretching over the hills and she was the only car on the road.

Then her headlights picked out something at the side of the road - a baby! A baby, all alone, abandoned in the dark and the cold. So she screeched to a halt and ran to rescue the poor little mite. Just as she was looking for it, the lights of an approaching car lit up the scene, and of course the poor little mite turned out to be a doll that someone had abandoned. The woman laughed at herself and got back in her car.

But as she was doing so, the other car started to do a crazy 3 point turn on the high, twisty road, and then sped up to catch right up to her bumper. The faster she drove, the faster the strange car drove. It was clearly chasing her.

Finally she reached the outskirts of civilisation, and drove to the police station, thinking that this would shake off the mystery driver. But as she came to a stop, the driver also came to a stop, jumped out, and started banging on her window. He shouted:

"WHEN YOU WERE OUT OF YOUR CAR, SOMEONE CLIMBED ONTO YOUR BACK SEAT!!!"

At the time I swallowed that one, hook, line and sinker.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Wed 18 Jan 2017, 9:28, 6 replies)

Screw Job Bob - Local Legend
A bit pathetic, this one...

Back in the mid-80s I was driving my girlfriend home and we were stopped at a light.

She points to a man across the intersection and says, "Oh, there's Screw-Job Bob."

I asked about the unusual nickname and she explained that he had a mild mental disability from a car accident and lived on the proceeds from an insurance settlement. He constantly chatted up (what he thought were) impressionable schoolgirls (15-18 range) hoping to score. They, in turn, tried to talk him into purchasing them some alcohol, after which they could ditch him. The running average of successful results was: girls about 50%, Bob 0%.

Thirty years later I overheard a couple of girls talking about him as my wife and I came out of the movies.

"Who wants to hit up Screw-Job for a pint of vodka?"

"No way. That's so junior high. My brother's home from college and he'll buy liquor for us."
(Wahoo, Tue 17 Jan 2017, 6:14, 3 replies)

Purple Aki?

( rjmrjm, Wed 11 Jan 2017, 23:50, 2 replies)

RIP QOTW

( Grrrmachine the indifference engine, Mon 13 Feb 2017, 9:00, 2 replies)

Not so much an urban legend...
But back in early 1980s Wolverhampton, at the height of Dallas-fever, there was the thrilling TV climax to "who shot JR." While waiting for the summer months of white dog turds and playing in the hollow tree on Upper Green (in the posh bit of Wolverhampton) to fade and for the answer to be revealed, we would get the occasional Mivvy or Cider Barrel from Mr. Boselli, the local ice cream man who had the Upper Green patch for his ice cream van.

But all is not so idyllic in the world of ice cream vans. An interloper parked his ice cream van in Mr. Boselli's spot leading to an almighty row betwixt the two of them. It ended badly for the interloper as Mr. Boselli returned to his home to fetch his shotgun before gunning down his soft-serve rival with both barrels at close range.

That led to the widely seen graffiti, "Boselli shot JR." I passed that every day on the way to school for the next 6 years.
(Gusofnavarone always makes a map of france from sarnies, Mon 9 Jan 2017, 16:50, Reply)

Underground Nuclear Shelter in Milton Keynes
In Milton Keynes (UK) there was a rumour about underground nuclear shelters beneath CMK shopping centre, built in the 70`s.

One of the nearby underpasses has a section which looks like a hidden door which, if true, looked like it would lead underground beneath the road to under the shopping centre and the rumour was that if senior politicians or members of the royal family found themselves on the M1 motorway when the nuclear alarm went off they would leave at J13 or J14 and head to the underground bunker to sit out the bombs.

The maths worked out for the amount of warning we would have and there was room for it. The most interesting part was the shopping centre was built before the housing was put in (MK was a planned city) so a secret bunker would have been easy to install at the time.
( My Name was saying these words inside your head on, Mon 9 Jan 2017, 13:28, 3 replies)

I live in Warsaw, which was utterly devestated by the war
The local park was a collection camp for the citizens, who were either transported by train to the concentration camps or executed on site. Rumour has it that the road tunnel under the train tracks, which now forms part of the inner city ring road, was used as an impromptu gas chamber, although there's no direct evidence.

200,000 people died at the camp. Numbers were partially calculated by how many tonnes of human ash were excavated from the site.
( Grrrmachine the indifference engine, Mon 9 Jan 2017, 7:32, 6 replies)

literal dogging
many years ago, a local lad who's a total scumbag started telling people his cousin had sucked off his dog in the back of a van. at first, nobody believed this. she may have been a bit odd and easily manipulated, but that seemed a bit much even for her.
that is, until a lad pulled her up about it in the park, saying he had been there and seen her do it. supposedly she admitted to it and begged him never to tell anyone about it.
of course, within an hour, the whole village knew.
still not sure how true it is, but she was known for giving a german shepherd a blowjob for the rest of her life
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Sat 21 Jan 2017, 17:09, 9 replies)

cathy
weird bitch in my school. used to play with herself in assembly and had the most disgusting habit of chewing a crisp to pulp, then spitting the pulp onto another crisp, then eating it. didn't know her 2 times tables by the age of 12 and seemed destined to live in a padded room.
scroll forward 20 years and there's rumours going round that she's in a mental hospital after getting pregnant due to being raped, then trying to eat the baby.
i knew for a fact that this was bullshit. she'd turned out much better than we'd thought she would, got herself a lovely bloke and got married. at the time these rumours were doing the rounds, she was expecting their first child.
fuck knows where she is now.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Thu 12 Jan 2017, 18:07, 7 replies)

Local man and the bridge
There's a local 'crazy' man (in that he shouts in the street a lot and recites bible quotes to the traffic, although having said that I did once have a nice conversation with him about reggae music, so maybe he's just misunderstood?)
anyway he likes to sit on a bridge, legs hanging off the edge, over a busy road near my house. He also likes to keep the bridge tidy, kind of like the troll from the kids story. Anyway, rumour has it his brother threw himself off the bridge
and that's what turned him 'crazy', understandable really. Anyway, that's Macclesfield for ya.
( Ya What Skiddlyboop, Tue 10 Jan 2017, 9:29, Reply)