The Romans built Hadrian’s Wall to separate them from marauding Northern hordes. Nowadays the marker has moved. I draw the line at Watford Gap Service Station. On arrival most people go in, wee and order coffee. It’s an opportunity denied to those in the “entertainment industry”.

Instead we huddle in the rain, taking photos of our Yorkshire trumpet player as he smokes a fag and points to a sign that says “The North”. I spend the 15 minutes trying to tweet about it on the McDonald‘s Wi-fi. Because we’re about to cross into that Heart of Darkness.

You know the part in the Wizard of Oz where everything’s suddenly in colour? On our trip to Leeds everything works the other way round. For the next 24 hours everything is grey.

The three of us squeeze back into the Ford Ka with suitcases, instruments and a PA system – and get back on the M1. I’m being chauffeured around in the back, like Poundland’s answer to Kanye West.

As the car crashes through the 50mph speed barrier the guys chat. The trumpet player explains that although the car cost £100 he’ll make at least half back when he sells it for scrap metal. The sax player pulls out a pack of wine gums. Through the window are miles of mist and gloom, punctuated by the occasional, abandoned JCB. Such is the glamour of life on the road.

We hit Derbyshire and the Operations briefing begins. It’s a guide on how to survive up North, delivered purely for my benefit. “Stuart, you’ll be fine – so long as you don’t open your mouth”. Sound advice. But when your job involves singing, it doesn’t help to live in fear of a bloke named Biffa hitting you over the head with a pasty.

“Stuart, don’t go out after dark with a suit on – they’ll bottle you”. At this point it occurs to me that I’m the only one in the car wearing a suit.

So my views on the North are tainted by the time we stop at Yorkshire’s Woolley Edge services. I make my virgin footsteps on Northern tarmac. I would bend down and kiss it like the Pope – were it not for the fear of getting my head kicked in. The first native I see is a woman eating noodles with her fingers. It’s like watching Crossroads on acid.

I’m only in the service station for about 90 seconds when it becomes clear that everyone up here is a million times more pleasant than the people at Watford Gap. If the staff at Watford Gap were an unruly child this Yorkshire service station is a child who says “please” and “thanks”. The folks in Leeds were nice too. We had a marvellous outing. At the end of the night we’re back on the M1, Oxford bound.

I decide I like it up North. And if I ever get to see a part that isn’t the interior of a motorway service station I might even enjoy being attacked by a bloke named Biffa.