Is it true that northerners are the friendliest people in the country? Well, there are hundreds - if not thousands - of polls, surveys and quizzes which tell us they are - much more so than their southern counterparts.
But just where do us Midlanders fit in? In a bid to discover the answer, the Burton Mail's sister title, the Derby Telegraph, carried out a social experiment in Derby city centre to see what people would do if someone lost a purse in the street – and filmed what happened.
Throughout East Street, St Peter's Street, the Cornmarket and The Spot, a reporter armed herself with 10 of Primark's finest purses and headed out to see how many she would get back.
In each case, she made a play of unknowingly dropping a purse on the ground and apparently walking away without noticing.
The good news is that 10 out of 10 purses were returned by a range of people, including men, women and children and even a busker in St Peter's Street, who called out to us to tell her she'd dropped it.
The Midlands is evidently full of honest, caring and helpful people who would hate to see you lose your precious property.
