Go! No Come Back!

Tuesday 23rd March

It was late on in the afternoon.

“Private Number Calling” flashed up on my phone.

As I suspected it was Carol GMTV’s programme organiser’s voice asking me to get on the road to North Yorkshire.

Details were scant but there had been a Post Office robbery and a woman was dead, possibly shot.

I set off and called Elaine Wilcox. We would meet at the village a few hours later after travelling from our respective ends of the country.

I was due in the Newcastle area in the morning for a shoot.

Colin the sound recordist and I were going to travel down together early in the morning.

I called him to say that there was now a change of plan and he would have to travel independently.

It was nearing the top of the hour. I tuned into the radio news bulletins.

It was rather surprising, not even a hint of any reports on the robbery.

After an hour or so on the road Elaine called to say that things did not appear to be as straight forward as at first appeared.

A little while later the phone rang once more. It was Carol again to tell me that we were not covering the story because it had appeared to have become something other than a straight forward crime.

Indeed it might not even have been a crime at all.

I did a U-turn and headed home for a good night’s sleep in my own bed.

Elaine did the same.

Unfortunately for her at around 2 am whilst I was firmly in the land of Nod she was being roused by someone on the news desk.

The incident was, after all a robbery and murder.

She had to get out of bed and get to Melsonby for live broadcast reports in the morning.