A set of dentures will take pride of place at a Tameside Working Men's Club after 'biting off' international fame.  

Paul Bishop says he lost his top set of gnashers some 11 years ago during an all-day drinking binge in Benidorm at a friend’s 50th birthday celebration.  

After downing one drink too many, he was sick in a green bottle bin outside a bar as his pals hurried him to drink up and move onto the next.  

But it was only when he reached that venue 50 yards along the road that he discovered his top set of false teeth were missing. 

He told the Reporter: “We’d been drinking all day and it was quite late on, about 11ish. All my friends were drinking lager, but I’d moved onto a cider but had half a pint left when they said we were moving on again. 

“I whooshed it down in one but once I got outside it came right back, so I headed straight to a big green bottle bin and was sick in it. 

“I was fine though, but when we reached the next bar one of my mates turned to me and said ‘Bish, where’s your teeth!’" 

Realising he must have lost them in the bin, he hurried back with his friends to look, but to no avail.  

“It was dark, late at night and the bottle bin was full and we looked but there was no chance of finding them. 

“The teeth actually cost me just over £500 so it was an expensive day out actually,” said Paul. 

“Later one of my friends said he heard the bottle bins being emptied, so that was it, goodbye teeth!” 

Paul said it was difficult managing without his top set of dentures for the remaining five days or so of the holiday back in 2011, not least because he was doing an Elvis act for his friends and had to perform without his teeth. 

However at the time he contacted his Droylsden dentist so Paul didn’t have long to wait for a new moulding and a new set of teeth to be made immediately upon his return. 

“In all I was about 10 days with no top teeth, so it wasn’t ideal but it could have been worse,” he added. 

Fast forward 11 years and Paul said an airmail package landed through the letterbox of his Waterloo Road home in Stalybridge all the way from Spain, with his dentures returned inside a sealed bag. 

A letter from the Spanish authorities explained that Paul’s teeth had been retrieved from the waste environment collection in Alicante and had been sitting in storage for years. 

What the letter from the Spanish authorities said 

But thanks to DNA studies they had now traced him and were returning his teeth. 

“The teeth are in perfect condition, not bruised or battered or damaged in any way. I could have just bought them yesterday, but of course they don’t fit anymore as the palette shrinks over time.”  

Paul said he was amazed that his teeth had been returned, but even more amazed that his story has now ‘gone global’. 

“The story’s gone across different continents, from Stalybridge to Somalia you might say. I’m stunned,” added Paul, who has had calls from numerous news networks across the world, including Spain. 

Paul, 63, is the general manager at Ridge Hill Working Men’s Club in Stalybridge, where everyone knows about the story. 

Now his teeth have found such fame he intends to put them on display in a glass cabinet alongside the letter at the club so everyone can have a ‘natter and a laugh’ in the years to come and remember the ‘famous Benidorm holiday of 2011’. 

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