I save the sugar bit for the wine!

I didn’t sleep very well last night. I think I was cold, which is really strange for me. The duvet on the bed was as flimsy as paper, and I fell asleep with the television on. I woke up periodically through the night to hear little snippets of various TV programmes, culminating in BBC Breakfast. It was very surreal. I got up having subconsciously ingested the main headlines of the day and learnt how to sign the word "explosion."

I had a horrible breakfast near the train station; half-cooked mushrooms on soggy toast, before meeting producer Paul by the train to Hattersley. The weather turned nasty as we trundled out of Manchester. A thin rainbow was glowing in an otherwise angry sky and then it started to rain.

The walk from Hattersley train station to the community centre where we were basing ourselves for the day was cataclysmic. The skies opened and we were attacked by millions of razor-sharp hail stones, one of which lodged itself in my eardrum and melted painfully.

The community centre was buzzing, however; filled to the brim with tables neatly set out for a Christmas party. Sitting at the tables were 150 elderly people tucking into plates of pork pies and turkey sandwiches. A middle-aged man with a mullet was singing classic hits to backing tracks, whilst his wife sat at a computer looking like the lovely Debbie McGee. We felt a little bit like intruders and, as we arrived, the community centre manager rushed over to say she’d been trying to contact us to tell us that today wasn’t a very good day for us to start our search.  

As it happened, it turned out to be the most perfect day to hang around the community centre. Everyone was in a really good mood, we were able to make a little announcement to tell people what we were doing, and we were very wonderfully welcomed into the community fold. Hattersley estate, with its links to the Moors Murderers and Harold Shipman, has had a lot of unnecessary bad press over the years, but, and maybe even because of the press, its sense of community spirit is remarkable. We were sat down, given a cup of tea, and then a lovely plate of meat, and then even a little Christmas present.

We met some proper characters including a wonderful lady who cares for a blind gentleman who’s also slowly going deaf. She is literally becoming his eyes and ears, and he is utterly dependent on her, which is particularly sad as he’s a pianist and she used to depend on him as her accompanist when she sang.

Quote of the day came from a lovely woman with purple hair, who, upon winning three pots of jam in the raffle, took a large glug of wine and announced excitedly; “I love the pots... I can’t eat the jam, of course, I’m diabetic. I save the sugar bit for the wine.”

350 years ago, and Pepys was hanging out with a Captain Ferrers and a German gentleman, one of Montagu’s footmen, called Emanuel Luffe, who borrowed Pepys’ theorbo, and by playing beautifully reminded Pepys what a wonderful instrument he’d acquired. Ferrers and Luffe departed after a breakfast of mince pies, but the German returned minutes later, covered in blood, nursing a massive wound to his head, saying that Ferrers had been killed by a waterman at the Tower Stairs. Pepys immediately rushed to the place where the murder had happened, but found all was well. Captain Ferrers, in true Ferrersian style, had picked a fight with a couple of watermen, provoked a rather sound beating for himself and his German companion, who had rushed at one of the watermen with his sword, before heading back to Pepys’ house for extra manpower. In the meantime, Captain Ferrers, who had at least nine lives, had escaped on a passing boat. Pepys returned to his house to find his wife dressing a wound on the German’s head. Luffe was presented with a cravat to protect another wound on his neck, and a crown as a thank you for protecting their troublesome mutual friend.