The housemates

After Helen Pidd and Yasser, her Syrian lodger, wrote about their house-share in January, they were inundated with offers of help, dinner invitations and football tickets. Readers asked how they, too, could host a refugee: an 89-year-old retired academic put up a friend of Yasser’s.

Burnage Academy, a boys’ school in south Manchester, invited Helen and Yasser to talk to their new-to-English students, then offered Yasser the opportunity to volunteer as a classroom assistant. Able, a private language school, gave him 10 hours a week free English tuition for as long as he wants it; Empowering Learning, a teacher-training consultancy in London, offered to sponsor Yasser through his teaching qualifications, so he could pick up the career he had so loved back home in Syria.

Yasser moved out in April, when his wife and toddler daughter arrived. They are now happily settled in north Manchester. He has a job stewarding for Manchester United and at Chester Races, and recently passed his driving test. After he left, Helen took in another refugee, a female academic from Damascus. She left in August and Helen is enjoying an empty house – for now.

Inside story of a heist

In January, Duncan Campbell told the astonishing inside story of the £14m Hatton Garden jewellery heist. Readers commented that the article read like the plot of a thriller, and indeed it was optioned by Working Title Films. Filming plans are now under way, with James Marsh (The Theory Of Everything, Man On Wire) directing and Joe Penhall writing.

From soldier to strongman

Naked ambition: Mark Smith. Photograph: Abbie Trayler-Smith for the Guardian

Mark Smith, a former soldier turned disabled bodybuilder, told Chris Stokel-Walker in January why he was planning to compete alongside able-bodied men in international contests. But a taster session for strongman training, where participants test their strength in challenges with extremely heavy weights, made him want to pursue that instead. In May, Smith won a national strongman contest; in August, he came sixth in the World’s Strongest Disabled Man competition. Next year, he’s aiming to win.

A mother’s battle for her baby

Annie with Huw. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

In February, Louise Tickle reported on one woman’s fight to get her baby son Huw returned from North Tyneside social services. Though her relationship with her own local authority is now, she says, “extremely tense”, “Annie” is in huge demand as a speaker by children’s services and university social work departments. She recently came off benefits to set up her own Surviving Safeguarding training and consultancy business, as well as an organisation to support parents in the care system. Her son, now three, is thriving in her care; her daughter Rosie, eight, has come home to live with Annie full-time.

One man, 20 jobs

You name it, he does it: Orcadian Billy Muir

At the end of October, Billy Muir – farmer, lighthouse keeper, firefighter, rare-breeds expert, air traffic controller, conservator, mechanic, binman, local councillor, builder, crofting commissioner, taxi driver, hotelier and unofficial president of the JCB fan club in Orkney, whom Bella Bathurst profiled in February, won a Pride of Britain award and met Theresa May at Downing Street. Still working at 67, Muir isn’t, he confessed, doing much to help lower the national retirement age. And nor will he for some time to come: his next goal is to buy a new digger.

Overcoming male infertility

Erin and Myles Elton and their daughters. Photograph: David Maurice Smith/The Guardian

When Myles and Erin Elton spoke to Kate Lyons in March for a story about male infertility, they had been trying to conceive their third child for nine months. Myles, 28, had been told at the age of 21 that, due to an illness he had suffered as a baby, he had only a 15% chance of ever having a child, with the likelihood greater while he and Erin were young. They had their first, Lucy, when they were 22; their second, Norah, two years later. They recently announced Erin is pregnant again; the baby is due in May.

The death of a son

Connor Sparrowhawk, who died in an NHS foundation trust residential unit. Photograph: justiceforlb.org

In April, Simon Hattenstone met Sara Ryan, the mother of Connor Sparrowhawk, who drowned in a bath three years ago, aged 18, at a residential unit run by Southern Health, an NHS foundation trust. His death eventually led to the finding that Southern Health had, between 2011 and 2015, failed properly to investigate the deaths of more than 700 people with learning disabilities or mental health problems. In August, chief executive Katrina Percy stepped down, only to be given a new advisory role. In October, she left Southern Health; the trust’s board said public feedback had led it to decide it was “no longer possible for her to continue”.

Slavery in Scotland

Abul Azad, trafficked into slavery in the Highlands

In May, Annie Kelly and Mei-Ling McNamara investigated the case of four Bangladeshi men trafficked into slavery in a remote hotel in the Scottish Highlands. In 2008, they were deceived into paying thousands of pounds for a visa, only to find themselves doing forced labour and abused by their employer, who was later jailed for three years. Readers set up a crowdfunding site to help with legal fees, and raised nearly £12,000 in four weeks. MPs in Scotland appealed directly to the Home Office to grant the men the right to remain. Last month, despite their being recognised as victims of trafficking and having served as key witnesses in the prosecution of their trafficker, their applications were rejected. They are now on their final appeal and face deportation.

Making a difference in Malawi

Students at Mguwata primary school in Malawi. Photograph: Axel Fassio/The Guardian

In July, after a gap of 13 years, John Vidal returned to Gumbi, the Malawian village where no child had ever had more than two years’ secondary schooling. Today the village is more optimistic. The money contributed by readers in 2003 has resulted in two schools being rebuilt. Without being asked, readers this year contributed a further £25,000, which means two community libraries can be built, equipped with books donated by Book Aid International.

A threat to Donald Trump?

Michael Sandford, arrested after grabbing a gun and saying he wanted to kill Trump. Photograph: John Locher/AP

In July, Simon Hattenstone spoke to the family of Michael Sandford, an autistic young man jailed in May for grabbing a gun at a Donald Trump rally in Las Vegas and saying he wanted to kill Trump. He was charged with disrupting an official function and two firearm offences. His mother, Lynne Sandford, revealed that Michael was suicidal. Readers raised more than £10,000 to help with his legal bills. This month, he was sentenced to 12 months in prison. Judge James Mahan told him: “You have a medical problem. You should not be ashamed or embarrassed about it… I don’t think you wanted to kill anybody.” Lynne Sandford was hugely touched by the support from readers, saying, “Michael passes on his sincerest thanks. I’m glad readers realise that, despite what he attempted to do, he’s not a bad person at heart.”

The mystery of the dead man

Illustration: Daniel Stolle

In August, novelist Mary Paulson-Ellis followed the story of Mr Lobban, an elderly man who died in Edinburgh with no next-of-kin and an ambiguous identity. Several people who knew him got in touch. Buff Hardie, an undergraduate with Mr Lobban at Aberdeen University in the early 50s, described a young man with “a flawless Oxbridge accent”, often the target of a gossip column in the student newspaper.



An email from Douglas Cameron placed Lobban next in Cambridge, a dapper man “like a young David Suchet playing Poirot”, teaching English as a foreign language. The first sighting of him in Edinburgh is in the 70s, remembered as someone “well-informed and amusing”, but skilled at deflecting questions.

Mr Lobban’s neighbour of 20 years got in touch to say she found him charming, though eccentric. He was a divisive figure, especially latterly, when his hoarding became extreme. She discovered a Jewish genealogy website detailing the fate of his father, Martin Krebs, who died at Auschwitz in 1944. Paulson-Ellis says, “It was a thrill to hear from those who knew Mr Lobban – an afterlife of sorts for the article and for him.”

Blind Date update

Did Tom and Emily find love? Photograph: James Drew Turner and Alicia Canter/The Guardian

Fifty-two matches, various kisses (some more awkward than others) and a handful of second dates: Cupid has had a busy year in our Blind date column. We can happily report that Tom and Emily (29 October) are still dating, even though he forgot her name the first time. “I’ve worn my full hi-vis cycle look in front of him,” Emily says, “and it didn’t put him off.”

Michael’s date with Rebecca (9 April) also led to a match – with a friend of a friend saw the article and got in touch. “I will always remember 2016 as the year when a reckless gamble paid off,” Michael says. “So if you’re in two minds, take the plunge.”

• Where did it all go right? For a more positive view of the world in 2017, follow the Guardian’s Half Full online series, with reports on innovative ideas and solutions to the challenges of the day. Wishing you all a happier new year.