Headline writers really like to create eye grabbing titles: I'd hardly call me sending them a friendly email "making them admit" :-)
Each of the station files contains the observations from the station per year and per month, as well as the calculated average (called the normal) and standard deviation.
I was concerned that as I read and parsed the Met Office data I was make some sort of standard cock-up like putting the wrong months in the wrong years so I used the averages and standard deviations as a double check since they are based on known date ranges.
BTW The code is open so you can stare at it yourself: http://landsurfacetemp.sourceforge.net/
Uncertainty estimates in regional and global observed temperature changes: a new dataset from 1850 P. Brohan, J. J. Kennedy, I. Harris, S. F. B. Tett & P. D. Jones http://hadobs.metoffice.com/crutem3/HadCRUT3_accepted.pdf
That paper is long and covers how the Met Office generates the trend data you see, how the data is modified and gridded, how error estimates are generated, etc.
I read your username after the vote. I would take it back, if I could, since it's your right to either be modest on the matter or if you really feel that all you did was "send them a friendly email". My apologies; I felt I owe an explanation since I was likely the first vote.