Just how would you greet Julie Mugford on any return visit to England? Of course the question is a little misleading because Julie has returned since the 1986 trial which found her ex-boyfriend Jeremy Bamber guilty on five counts of murder (she returned in 2002 but it was all very hush hush),and the title is a misnomer in itself as Julie is now Julie Smerchanski née Mugford and has made a full success of her life with her husband and two children. From whatever perspective one approaches the issue: friend, foe, the legal angle or just out of plain curiosity the answer will differ widely according to the individuals you consult.
There is a saying East West Home's Best and Julie may well have this associated sense of excitement as she steps onto the blue and white Naples Metrolink tram and starts her journey in this eclectic city of Cottonopolis, with its remnants from philanthropist Richard Cobden's Harvest House library and the modern-day buff brick Arndale Centre, which Bill Bryson described as the biggest pissoir in Europe. Fortunately there are more diadems than eyesores in this beautiful city as Julie turns her neck to the left and spies Piccadilly Gardens, its greenery and Albert Memorial, though her tram will travel southwards down Mosley Street, lined with banks and convenience stores, until she reaches St. Peter's Square and the Central Reference Library on the right.
Should Julie wish to alight at this point and partake of the world-famous Elizabeth Gaskell collection she would be disappointed, as the establishment is closed for refurbishment for what has seemed like an eternity, as one hopes the heart has not been ripped out of the building akin to a new London popstar denuding the features of his newly acquired Georgian house in Muswell Hill. Julie can in fact see the beautiful neoclassical library with its white marble stone and Roman portico from the safety and comfort of her seat, and whether she momentarily imagines herself back at the threshold of White House Farm one can only guess.
Julie continues her journey past the Old Trafford football and cricket grounds, though one perceives only a gated exterior midweek, along the well-to-do wannabee stations of Brooklands and Timperley with its upwards of £1 million properties for those who are literally not quite in the Premier League bracket of Bowdon and Hale with footballers, Coronation Street stars and television and international business executives, who would no more think of hopping on the local Ringway jet than most of us would about our daily boarding a local train or bus.
And so into Altrincham Metrolink station where Julie, perhaps reminiscing of times gone by with hockey stick in hand, catches the orange and white Selnec double decker bus which wends its way out of suburbia to the grammar school on Bowden Road. Initial prosperity for this pretty, historic town has given way to boarded up shops as the masses have a day out in Manchester or take their business to the newly opened Trafford Centre, the Cheshire set ever concealed in their gleaming Wilmslow villages and surrounds as they look askance at the fortunately for them hidden from view largest council estate in Europe just up the road in Wythenshawe, where the chavs are alive as ever as they oftentimes venture out of their turf into a more attractive vicinage, whilst the well-heeled wannabees of Altrincham sip their machiattos in Rackham's, try on a Bowler Derby hat for their son's wedding and pray the working classes remain firmly outside.
