“I remember British Rail – it was appalling,” a shopper explains to Lisa Nandy as they chat on Worksop high street. The Labour leadership candidate is trying to convince him that public ownership of rail might help people struggling with poor transport in the area. But he is not to be convinced. In his view, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour, and the man himself, are “too communist”.

He tells her he was born in 1949, and remembers what he sees as the perils of leftwing postwar governments, both in Britain and elsewhere in Europe. A nationalised rail network was a shoddy network, he says, adding: “I just don’t want to go backwards.”

Politely, but firmly, he says that he cannot see how Labour’s policies speak to him any more and that he voted Tory at the last election. “When Labour was in the Blair area, I could support a lot of what they were saying. That you’ve got to create wealth,” he said.

Genuine though Nandy’s gratitude for his input appears to be, the observation presents a problem. This is not the first time the 40-year-old leadership candidate has come up against intense doubt about nationalisation on her campaign to replace Corbyn. But she believes in it. And if Labour can find the right message, she says, sceptical voters can be persuaded.

Later, she stops to speak to Chris, who is out walking his dog in the bright winter sunshine. He used to be a Labour supporter, he says, but at the last election he voted for Brexit and the Conservatives.

The litany of reasons why he turned away from Labour include Corbyn being a “union man” and the “unions have let us down”. He was unhappy with the state of the high street and local health services. Nandy steps in to explain that high street investment is not the fault of the local Labour council, but national government cutbacks.

When he talks about the state of the local hospital and health services, Nandy again blames the Tories, explaining that it was the local politician, the former Labour MP John Mann, who secured the hospital’s future in the town. But the former lorry driver is not buying it, even though it turns out a local Labour councillor directly helped him secure a work-based training course in Sheffield. After the hard sell, he explains to Nandy he is not even close to going back to Labour.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Labour party members listen to Nandy’s speech at Worksop town hall. Photograph: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images

Nearly two months after the general election, at least in this former heartland town, the red wall feels impenetrable.

Still, the MP for Wigan is not to be deterred. She continues to cheerfully meet more people doing their morning shopping, then heads into a church and community centre, The Crossing. There she is warmly welcomed, and after people have gathered who she is, they are keen to talk to her and pleased at her interest. One former councillor says Nandy gives her hope for the future; another woman says she voted Labour, and while she didn’t agree with Corbyn, appreciated that he stuck to his beliefs.

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Nandy is now several weeks into her campaign to replace Corbyn and relishes the challenge of speaking to those people who have turned away from her party, in the most granular terms possible. The self-proclaimed queen of town renewal, regeneration, better transport and bus services, she is not afraid to discuss improvements that could be made on a street-by-street basis. She says enthusiastically about ex-Labour voter Chris: “I am going to come back and persuade him!”

At the town hall, an ornate former corn exchange, she is given a standing ovation by members of the Bassetlaw constituency party. It’s an older crowd, as you would expect on a weekday morning, and although few appear to have met her before or know much about her, they believe she has got the right answers to Labour’s problems.

She talks about reforming universal credit, giving people a greater say over their town, scrapping local enterprise partnerships and giving local councillors more of a role in the national leadership of the party. It’s a clear pitch to the grassroots.

District councillor Josie Potts says: “I think she’s passionate, she will eventually, hopefully bring our Labour heartlands back. She knows where we need to go both as a party and a country and people in communities like mine are already listening. They like what they are hearing from Lisa.”

Nandy was even 30 minutes late for her own event, blaming it on poor transport. She recounts how somebody said to her the other day how “you could just get a bus ...” and the room – keenly aware of the difficulties with that mode of transport in South Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire – descends into laughter.

Later she heads to the Middleton Yard Development, an abandoned building which is going to be converted to provide space for new start-up businesses by the council who might also receive enterprise grants.

Despite a speech focused on giving local councillors more of a say – she is, after all, keen to secure their votes – by the afternoon she changes tack. She says it is now the time in the leadership campaign to move away from discussing internal structures, and instead grasp the chance to look outwards.

She says: “We have just seen our entire Labour base collapse not just in Scotland, but in north Wales, the north, the south and the Midlands. We’ve got to show people we’ve understood that and start talking about the reasons why people like the man I met on the street who’s voted Labour all his life has just turned away from us.

“If we carry on like this there will be a moment where people just stop listening all together. I don’t think we’ve got long.”