Local historians, Alan Read and Alistair Herd, both had a part to play in helping internationally distinguished opera singer, Lesley Garrett, discover the very room in which her grandmother was born, and the halls in which her great grandfather, Frederick George Mellars, a strolling player and musician, had performed.

Her instinct to make a vital connection with her ancestors is one of the stories to feature in the BBC2 series, "Back to Your Roots", for which Robin O'Sullivan is the leading researcher. Robin contacted Alan, whose histories of Egremont can be found in every country in the world, and Alan suggested involving Alistair, because of his specialist interest in the archives of Egremont families.

That was how Alan and Alistair came to be introduced to Lesley on a showery afternoon on 29th July and show her places of great personal interest. "A garret!", Lesley exclaimed in delight when they showed her the window of the room in which her grandmother was born, then 16 St Bridget's Lane, the home of Mr Maginnis, a collier, who took pity on the heavily pregnant musician who stood before him. Now it is the potato store for Jenkinsons, retaining still the hooks on which joints of bacon were hung and the slate shelves on which it was carved. Elvina describes the look of amazement in Lesley's eyes that once large families lived in such cramped accommodation, and Alan gently helped her to conceive what real poverty was like, recalling his own childhood when his family was dependent on his father's 30 shillings a week pension. She then visited the upstairs room in the Wheatsheaf, where plays like "Maria Martin and the Red Barn" were performed by companies like her great grandparents', and later the Market Hall, the rather more upmarket theatre of the time. What would they have thought if they could have caught a glimpse of the future and seen their great granddaughter performing in most of the great theatres of the world?
(Left, Elvina Jenkinson shows the room in which Lesley's grandmother lived.)