Rochdale Town Hall will host a “free family fun day” tomorrow, which local historians are already dubbing The Last Gathering. With temperatures expected to soar to an unprecedented 25°C, enough to boil the average Rochdale pigeon alive, the town’s remaining families are invited to dance, craft, and generally ignore the faint smell of societal rot drifting in from the A58.
Inside the Great Hall, Skylight Circus Arts will teach circus skills, which could prove handy when the survivors are forced to fight for the last tins of chickpeas in the rubble of Aldi. Parents will be encouraged to “let their imaginations run wild” with arts and crafts, creating colourful cardboard memories that will serve as cheerful kindling when the gas finally runs out.
On the lawn, Ray Bubbles will summon shimmering globes of soapy air, hypnotic reminders of the fragility of life, each one bursting in a silent metaphor for hope. Children will squeal with laughter, blissfully unaware that one day they too will pop.
Music will be provided by the Orchestra of Objects, a troupe of noise-making eccentrics whose “interactive installations” will, in the post-collapse years, double as improvised alarm systems against marauding gangs from Oldham. For explorers, the bee trail promises “hidden treasures”, which in Rochdale usually means a wasp nest, a Tesco trolley, and a handwritten note saying “it’s too late”.
The event runs from 10am to 4pm, after which the sun will drop low, shadows will stretch across the cobbles, and attendees will return to their homes knowing they have seen the peak of human civilisation. Everything after this will just be the credits.
