Hello Swindon, I am Luitgard Heissenberg, chief editor of the Salzgitter Zeitung, the newspaper in Swindon's twin town of Salzgitter in Germany.

From time to time, I will be sending you news from here in Salzgitter.

Summertime can be boring here. Nearly everybody is out of town during school holidays. But currently we have a lot to write about.

55 firefighters and rescue workers had a gruelling job last Saturday. At noon a 23 months old boy fell into a drill hole. His parents wanted to sink a well in their garden. The hole had a diameter of 25 centimetres, but was 2,50 metres deep. For a moment the parents did not take care, their child ran into the garden and fell onto the ground. The baby's head has a diameter of 23 centimetres. Therefore it was totally jammed in the dark.

The boy cried all the time. One firefighter talked to him and held an oxygen hose into the drill hole. Also the parents and the grandfather tried to still their boy.

His crying motivated the men to burrow a big well nearby the small one. It was very hot that day, one worker took over from the other after three or four minutes. Two hours later the rescue well had a depth of 2,20 metres. With their hands the men scraped a small tunnel to the boy. At the end they got the child - healthy. The boy both cried and clapped his hands, because all the people at the edge of the hole applauded.

Swine flu reached Salzgitter on Monday. A 52 years old man was infected during his holiday trip to Spain. He and his family are at home in quarantine. The public health department is seeking for people, who have been in contact with the man. He is an employee of the steel company "Salzgitter AG", which is the the biggest employer in the City. Fortunately the man had not returned to work.