A week or so after Quest Media – then-owner of the Glossop Chronicle, the Oldham Reporter, Tameside Radio, and crucially, the Tameside Reporter – was liquidated, The Tour of Tameside is in full swing.
Organised by Chris Bird and Emma Marsh – former co-directors of Quest Media – ‘The Tour’ as it’s now known is an annual festival for runners, going through Tameside, Oldham and Glossop; and it’s typical of staff at the papers to volunteer at the event. The weather is typical too: grey sky, light drizzle. It’s June 2024, but summer hasn’t quite elbowed its way to the front.
What’s not typical are the strange pieces of A4 paper stapled to tree trunks, dotted around the course. One staff member from the Tameside Reporter remembers spotting one through the thin woodland: a white sheet scrawled with black marker. She looks closer and reads the words “BIRD OUT!”
Making her way through the trees she finds more and more of them. “CHRI$ £IRD” reads one. “BIRD IS NOT THE WORD” asserts another. What could it all mean, and who would go to the trouble of putting them up?
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