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Morris sets up a little piece of Shropshire in a park in Hueytown but even the free sandwiches and lemonade don't win him a crowd... so, disappointed but not disheartened, he travels on to Tuscaloosa where he launches a media campaign....

He told me my motives were good, but that just one man canÂ’t possibly make a difference.

I told him to tell that to Isambard Kingdom Brunel, to Albert Einstein, to Isaac Newton, to Abraham Lincoln, to Lord Clive of India, to Thomas Telford. I had to explain to him who a couple of them were.

He told me he couldn’t tell it to them as they were all dead and would I please go and make a difference somewhere else. On reflection I probably caught him at a bad time, I interrupted "Eleanor Rigby" to talk to him. As I walked away he started playing it again, but changed the word ‘lonely’ to ‘crazy’, I think he may have been referring to me.

Can one man make a difference? I might not be able to change the life of every single person, but if I can just alter one life for the better then itÂ’s all been worthwhile.

I also met a woman call Freda today who looked a bit like my old Geography teacher, Mrs Perry, only a bit thinner. Freda told me the thing she most wanted in life was to find true love, she has had a string of relationships that have all ended badly and wanted to find her ‘knight in shining amour’. (sic) Though I am not perhaps as well versed in the ways of love as I might be, I did my best for her, I bought her an airline ticket to England and told her to try Market Drayton on market day, there’s always a few eligible farmers there.

Most people have no phone, no TV, have never ordered a Pizza, do not have clean water or a flush toilet. Only 40,389 People live in Shropshire out of six billion worldwide, thatÂ’s just one in 148,555 people, itÂ’s all so unfair. I obviously canÂ’t bring everyone to Shropshire, there just isnÂ’t room and the foot traffic would cause havoc with the country paths. So IÂ’m bringing Shropshire to them.

I set up a little piece of Shropshire today in a place called Hueytown.

They have a lovely park here, Martin Luther King Park, so I found a bench, set up a couple of signs saying "Morris TelfordÂ’s Corner Of Shropshire", I displayed my Ordinance Survey Map of Shropshire on a nearby tree, made sandwiches, brought some lemonade, played Chas n Â’Dave tapes in the background (itÂ’s all I had) and waited for the floods of curious Americans.

After a couple of hours not one person had approached me, most walked on the grass to avoid me. I decided to take a more aggressive approach and began shouting at some girlÂ’s playing rounders nearby. They call it softball here, or baseball, but itÂ’s actually rounders. The girls shouted some things back but the things they shouted they were both unhelpful and obscene so I left the park.

IÂ’m going to try again tomorrow but without the music or sandwiches, I think the people were overwhelmed by my generosity and the complex lyrics of Charles and David. This triggered suspicion and fear. IÂ’m also going to dress more smartly, perhaps wear a tie, or some trousers.

I was wearing trousers today, just not smart ones.

IÂ’ve set up "Morris TelfordÂ’s Corner Of Shropshire" in Martin Luther King Park again today. I got here early to catch the pre-work dog walkers and so far eight people have spoken to me and four people smiled as they hurried past. To be fair, on top of those twelve, seventy-eight people have totally ignored me, twenty three people have asked me to leave them alone, ten people have sneered at me in a very negative manner, two people asked me if I was ill and one person thought I was their dead husband. They were mistaken.

A little girl came up to me, one of the few not snatched away by parents suspicious of my Shropshire extravaganza. She was called Ruby; she was nearly nine and looked like she might grow up to resemble Barbara Windsor, only taller.

I told her I travel the world helping solve problems, a bit like Edward Woodward in ‘The Equaliser’ only younger and without the trench coat or killing people. Ruby had never heard of Mr Woodward or indeed his equalising exploits but she did tell me that her hamster, Rocky, had died last week and wanted my help. While I admit that raising the dead is currently beyond my abilities as a champion of justice, promoter of village life and scourge of evil, I felt it my duty to try and ease her youthful grief.

Showing the little girl my Ordinance Survey Map that IÂ’d pinned to a tree, I explained that I come from a faraway land called Shropshire. A magical place where all the hamsters that have done a good job of being a pet in America come to when they die.

In Shropshire the hamsters are treated like extra special guests by all the people, they have solid silver hamster wheels on every street corner, all the shops give away hamster food in little golden bags, everyone is very, very careful where they tread, those plastic spheres that people lock hamsters inside are illegal on penalty of death, the streets are paved with sawdust and the insides of toilet rolls, and there is a restraining order that means Freddie Starr canÂ’t come within 80 miles.

I told Ruby that her little pal Rocky was probably there now sat on a little hamster cushion with his name embroidered on it, filling his little cheeks full of his favourite food and listening to whatever it is hamsters like to listen to. Something by Mike Batt perhaps, or Hamster Rap, Coolio dressed as a Gerbil wearing three inch thick gold chains singing "LivinÂ’ in a HamsterÂ’s Paradise".

Despite her tender years, Ruby saw through my fabricated vision of hamster utopia. She knew full well that Rocky was not in Shropshire, he was in a shoebox in her back garden and he was never, ever coming back. I gave her $20 to buy a new hamster and that seemed to cheer her up.

Toby called me morning from work, I explained to him the office policy on personal calls, especially overseas calls but he laughed it off. Things are going very well for him, he likes his job, he loves Sophia and he is very grateful to me for the helping hand I gave him. I did give him a little bit of advice about Sophia, told him to be careful not to rush things, I hope he heeds my words.

Mr Morris Telford"