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Hilary travels to Rochdale just a few miles from where she grew up, and will be living undercover for ten days on the Falinge estate. With a reputation as a no-go area, the estate is notorious for having the highest percentage of people on incapacity benefits in the country. It's something that doesn't sit easily with Hilary's views on benefits.
With the undercover story that she's making a documentary about moving back to her north-west roots, Hilary starts her mission by getting a job in a pub, hoping it'll be a good place to meet people. She grew up behind a bar, but even though it's 30 years since she pulled a pint, she slots into life as a barmaid quickly working alongside landlady Mary. And she quickly gets a good tip about a woman who runs a local project who needs help.
Hilary visits the Syke Base Community Centre to meet Sheila Acton, the volunteer manager. 70-year-old Sheila started the centre six years ago after realising that local OAPs were too frightened to come out of their homes because of crime.
The centre serves the whole community, providing educational and social services including lunch clubs, art classes and trips to Blackpool for the 'golden girls and guys club', as well as running projects for local kids.
But the centre has lost it's £62k funding – and along with that it's paid staff – and faces potential closure in just four months if new funding doesn't come through. The project now relies on volunteers like Sean, who tells Hilary that Sheila is working round the clock to keep the place going.
After a couple of days in Rochdale, the initial shock of the area has worn off and Hilary is beginning to recognise the positive aspects of a close community – something she doesn't have back at home: "I had a very nomadic childhood and didn't put down grassroots. To have a lifestyle which is like theirs where everybody knows each other, and they all have the local pub, the local restaurants and local community centres, I think would be lovely."
Hilary wants to get involved with something close to her own heart: youth work. She meets Carol at the Back Door Music project: a place for young people interested in music. The project is run on a shoestring and relies on a team of volunteers – now including Hilary. Carol started the project for her own kids twelve years ago. Ever since she's tried to keep it going for the local kids, despite working part-time in a bank.
Meanwhile Hilary meets Sean again. As well as volunteering at Syke Base, being a single dad to four kids and holding down a full-time job, he also runs Syke Base FC. He's become a father figure to the young lads at the football and they often come to him with their problems. But with no funding Sean's two teams have had to be reduced to just one.
"As the week has gone on and I've got to know more and more people here, and how nice and how friendly and how heart-warming they are, Rochdale is becoming a nicer place to live. What has been so nice here is they don't know I've got any money so they've just taken me at face value, and I'm quite sure that everyone I've met will become life-long friends."
After ten days getting to know people undercover it's time for Hilary to decide who to help with some of her own fortune. She's so blown away by the people she's met that Hilary decides to double her planned donation: "I've done the research, I've worked with the people, I've socialised with the people and I'm 100% sure I'm doing the right thing."
And, just as importantly, it's made her reflect on her own life: "I definitely say the experience has changed me. Money's not my God, it's people that matter. I think a lot of the people in Rochdale have got a far happier life than I have, it's a sense of belonging, and that's something I've not achieved in my life yet. But hopefully one day I'll put down roots and I will belong, to someone and some place."
Intro | About Hilary | About the programme | Music
