595 clarification

I take it all you Gruts Gangers have been watching Happy Valley out of morbid curiosity as to what life is really like in Upper Calderdale. Good, isn't it? The show I mean. As, indeed, is living in Upper Calderdale.

But you shouldn't believe everything you see on telly. Five episodes in, and how many hippies, lesbians, or fat blokes with beards have they shown prowling the streets of Hebden Bridge? Zilch, that's how many. How realistic isn't that? Meanwhile, if Happy Valley is to be believed, we can't move for drug addicts, psychopaths, kidnappers, rapists, cop-killers, and (I'm not making this up) ghosts.

Sarah Lancashire in Happy Valley
Sarah Lancashire searching for kidnapping murderers round the back of Jen's sister's house the other week.

I didn't realise, until I saw the scene where Sarah Lancashire and her grandson come out of Oasis, having bought a bag of sweets, that I actually saw them filming the series. (For the record, Oasis doesn't sell bags of sweets.)

But the real howler came right at the end of episode 5. The seriously injured psychopathic triple murderer and kidnapper climbs on the 595 bus at Tuel Lane and heads off to Hebden Bridge for, we all presume, a final showdown with an unsuspecting Sarah Lancashire.

But here's the catch… The 595 bus doesn't go anywhere near Tuel Lane in Sowerby Bridge. It runs from Hebden Bridge station, down Commercial Street, up Birchcliffe, around Dodd Naze, up Wadsworth Lane, past our house, then takes a sharp left down Nook Lane through Old Town and Pecket Well to the Crimsworth turning circle, then all the way back along the same route in reverse to Hebden Bridge station.

I do wish the BBC would check their facts before airing misleading nonsense about local bus routes.

Richard Carter

A fat, bearded chap with a Charles Darwin fixation.

3 comments

  1. I can hardly watch it now with all that baggage you've given me! Next thing you'll be pointing out all the continuity and location errors in Last of the summer wine.

  2. Blimey - with all those errors I'm mighty glad I've never even heard of it, let alone watched it. Hang on a minute though - Ms Lancashire does look quite fetching in that uniform.

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