Council estate gardens in Oldham, Moston and Stalybridge to be picked.
The hit TV show American Pickers is filming a new series in the UK, and this reporter has been given access to the filming of one of the episodes. The series will be filmed in some of Manchester, Oldham and Tameside's famous grot spots, and will involve the stars of the show Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz trawling through rubbish strewn council estates looking for "rusty gold".
First stop of the day was at a rundown looking council house in Moston, where tenants Wayne Dobbs and his partner Chantelle Platt had invited the pickers to trawl through their rubbish strew garden. Mike immediately spotted something red that was buried under weeds at the bottom of the garden.
It was a rare burnt out 1982 Ford Sierra that have been left by the previous tenants. "How much would it take for you to part with this" asked Mike. A bemused looking Wayne stood opened mouthed, as he couldn't believe someone would pay for this junk. As he tried to think of a figure Mike shouted to him "I could go 300 bucks, sorry pounds for it".
It was clear Wayne couldn't believe his luck, as he told us, off camera, that he had recently been given a notice by the council to get it removed in two weeks or face a £250 fine."
"Its yours mate, I'm glad its going to someone who will appreciate it" beamed Wayne as the pair shook on the deal. By this time Chantelle was ushering Frank over to a piece of "English history" that she had just dragged out of a privet hedge. It was the remains of a 1970's Silver Cross pram, minus the body.
Frank told us " Its not very often you come across something like this, and for someone who's restoring one of these, they would pay big money to get their hands on it. That pram is coming home with us, its just a case of how much it takes to prize it away from them". A minute later and Frank was a happy man, as the bearded charmer had bagged the old pram for a mere £125.
The next call was at a place that had been seen by the shows researchers. It was a house on the Derker estate in Oldham, and it had junk in the garden and throughout most of the house. The guys met the owner Harry Barwick who is 83, and had lived at the place since 1960, and had never thrown anything away since moving in. Mike beamed as he saw the wall to wall collection of crap that the demented octogenarian had amassed over the last half century.
"Wow you've got some serious tonnage man" said Mike as he beamed at the mountain of rotting detritus in Harry's bathroom. "How long have you been collecting" he asked. Harry said he wasn't really a collector, but more of a lazy sod that couldn't be bothered to take his rubbish to the tip, so he just put it in the house until he could think of what to do with it.
Frank was studying the mess in front of him when he spotted something shiny in Harry's bathtub, it was an early eighties Russell Hobbs microwave oven. The plug was missing, and the door was hanging off, but as Frank told us "Its not very often you come across something like this, and for someone who's restoring one of these, they would pay big money to get their hands on it. That microwave is coming home with us, its just a case of how much it takes to prize it away from him"
A minute later and Frank was a happy man, as the bearded charmer had bagged the old microwave for a mere £150.
Harry was keen for the boys to take some items that he said he wasn't personally attached to, but after a quick look the pickers decided they had no use for 25 black bags filled with rotting waste or 36 old Coke bottles full of piss.
That ended our day with Mike, Frank and the production team, and we wished them well as they were off to visit the Stalybridge hell holes of Brushes and Copley the next day.
