The story of Noel Thomas’s jumper

What is it about the connection made by the Sub-Post-Masters and -Mistresses?

Unless you ignore me completely, you will have heard me mention I was on Newsnight this week. If you watched, you’ll have heard Shazia Sadiq tell Victoria Derbyshire how being locked out of her home and businesses by the Post Office made her feel. Derbyshire, a consummate pro, turned to me and asked me a very important question. How, she asked, does that make you feel?

Uh oh, I thought. This was a moment I had been dreading. This was, I sensed immediately, a Noel Thomas Jumper moment. I had a very familiar feeling of the need to fight back tears. I only half managed it.

The jumper of Mr Thomas?

There is a picture of Noel Thomas standing outside the RCJ just after his conviction was quashed with his wife, Eira. It's rather haunting and, as it turns out, unhappily prescient of the struggles beyond that day. The other thing about it is a simple and personal coincidence: my late Dad wore the same jacket and jumper. He did so all the time. I often have a moment when this picture comes up in the slide deck for my talks on the Scandal.

And that's why it's me done on the sofa: a connection I cannot undo or ignore. Not very rational but fraught with meaning. My best shot at explaining that meaning is my Mum and Dad ran a pub. Working class Geordies, Shazia sounded like one of my aunties, decency and kindness was what they valued most. Working in the pub, they got to know a lot of people. They knew…. who would help you out? Who’s always first to buy a round? Who can laugh at themselves? They knew who passed these tests in our local village and didn't care about the other stuff; “success” or money stirred neither admiration nor envy.

The stories so vividly told in Mr Bates v the Post Office and in dozens of TV studios since are full of these moments of connection. The survivors of this catastrophe are the primary school girl at school who didn't ever seem to say anything but smiled at everyone; the bloke who always helped out if you needed two pairs of hands; the sixteen year old girl who stood up to the bullies at the bus stop that time; the woman always making cakes for the umpteenth church coffee morning. The moments of connection we have when someone we like meets someone we love and sees what we see (my friend, my dad - forgive me the indulgence). They are also, perhaps, tributes to a past that we worry has gone forever.

The connection is the thing, I think. It's emotional and rational. It's the only thing about it that's about us. We can fight it back with cynicism or we can do something with it. We can build on it.

Now, lecture over. Who’s coming for a pint?