Saturday March 26th

Finally, Noelene and I went to bed but, guess what, I hardly slept yet again and got up at about five o’clock to start writing down what had happened before I forgot the detail.  Later we were interviewed by Granada Reports, the main UK North West commercial TV news channel.  This was a very relaxed and quite enjoyable affair with Kate just chatting to us while Alan filmed.  I’ve found that it helps me a lot to talk about my experiences and later GMTV (UK early morning TV station) made contact to see if I’d appear on their programme on Tuesday morning.  Initially I said “no” but reflected a little and they said they’d phone me back on Monday for a definite answer.  Noelene and I went to the supermarket to get food for the meal she'd arranged to cook for the girls, their partners and Alex on Sunday and we bought all the newspapers.  There was a short paragraph or two in the national dailies but a full page spread of the homecoming in the Manchester Evening News and Bolton Evening News.

I made a few phone calls to my brother Rob and sisters Helen and Jan as well as a few close friends who had sent their best wishes and thoughts.  All of them seemed to be as delighted to hear from me as I was to be able to speak to them.  Pete was watching the first of the new Dr. Who series so cut me off.  But he did guiltily call me back later so I’ve kind of forgiven him!