I lay awake at night, and in the early hours of the morning, repeating Brenda’s reassurances like a mantra: It was a harmless stunt. Try not to worry.

Until, two days before the guests were due to arrive, four days before Damson Day, as I sat down at the kitchen table with a mug of tea and a slice of rye bread with Damson Farm honey, a new message arrived through the website contact page:

Your ‘about us’ page on the website appears to be missing some important information. Like who you really are and what you’ve done.

Needless to say, my tea went cold.

Daniel was down by the river with Luke and some of the older men who’d been helping out. He called and waved when he saw me coming, his face glowing, body barely able to contain his energy.

‘You’ll never guess what Frank and Eddie found!’ he grinned, bursting with glee.

I eyed the enormous piles of lopped off branches.

‘Loads of brambles and undergrowth?’

‘Underneath the brambles and undergrowth. Take a look!’

I waited for Luke to drop another huge branch on the pile, and then peered around it, my head in no state to start guessing what might be there.

Oh, now that was worth getting excited about. It was a bridge.

A narrow stone strip, no rails or other features, about ten feet from one bank to the other, and wide enough for one large man or a couple of children to walk across without risk of toppling into the water.

‘This bridge has been here all along? Did you know?’

‘I had no idea! This has been a thick mess of weeds for as long as I can remember. The brambles made it impossible to get near to it, even if we’d have wanted to. It was these guys who found it.’

Frank pulled off his cap and scratched his bald head before putting it back again. ‘We got to talking, me and Eddie. Remembered that back in the day some of the New Side lads had used a different way to get over the river to the mine. Alec Perry let the bushes grow so that folks who didn’t need to know wouldn’t. We kept the smallest gap through the middle, had to crawl on hands and knees with every inch of skin covered to avoid getting half-scratched to death. We didn’t know if it would still be here, let alone be safe to carry any weight, but thought it worth a look, save us New Siders taking the long way round.’

‘It looks all right though, doesn’t it?’ Eddie added, with a smug smile. ‘James Perry knew how to build things to last.’

‘James?’ I glanced at Daniel.

‘My great-grandfather.’

‘Wow. This is incredible.’

‘Means we’ll need to get them young lads back, to get a path sorted, save us churning the meadow into a mud-pit,’ Frank said, rocking back on his boot heels.

‘I’ll put something on the Facebook page.’ Luke wiped a smear of dirt off his forehead with his wrist.