This chapter outlines the background to the lecture by Edwards and Steptoe in January 1979. Littleton brings the Health Service and the 1970s research programme to life in the context of a town in Northern England. She describes the initial and subsequent coverage of the first ‘test-tube baby’ in print and broadcast media and sheds new light on the activities of Edwards and Steptoe in the period between the ending of their original Oldham research programme and the opening of their new clinic, Bourn Hall in Cambridgeshire, in autumn 1980 up until circa 1982. New material is included in the photographs and screengrabs taken from video of relevant archival material. New insights into the key characters and the reaction to their work are presented.

This chapter describes how the 1979 lecture was rediscovered in the RCOG Archives, why the project was initially conceived, and how it was brought to fruition.

In this chapter, a reporter who was a member of the media team who got the very first scoop on the ‘test-tube baby’, taking the newspaper and Oldham out to the rest of the world, reflects on the local story and how it broke. It contains Barker’s original write-up of the 1979 lecture in the Oldham Chronicle and features new information on local women who volunteered for the research programme.