Abram does Morris dancing. Seriously.

Platt Bridge and Abram are old pit villages that got stuck together on a map. Abram has its own Morris dance, which is not what you expect off a Wigan bypass. The pubs have mostly gone, with 2 left and more bookies per head than most towns, and the library's shut. It chucks it down on 167 days a year, which is a lot of wet Morris dancing.

Then there are the fires. Somebody sets one here nine and a half times as often as in the typical town, and the bins go up about twenty-four times as often. The water company lets sewage out for nearly fourteen times as long as in the typical town, all round the nature reserve at Low Hall.

The editor, who watched the Morris dancers and left