Name-dropping at the tearooms

Just who was the Betty that gave her name to the tearooms that are such a characteristic and well-loved part of life in Yorkshire?

Somebody must once have known, but the answer has been lost over the course of more than 90 years since Bettys first opened its doors.

Now the mystery has inspired a whimsical new book in which some of our leading authors and dramatists have offered their own highly individual takes on who Betty might have been, in prose and poetry.

Whimsical it certainly is, but the reason for publishing later this month is deadly serious – to raise funds for a project to save an area of rainforest the size of Yorkshire, a mission that has the backing of the Prince of Wales, who has written the foreword to the book, called Who Was Betty?

The Yorkshire Rainforest Project was founded by Bettys and Taylors of Harrogate. The business has already planted three million trees around the world. With the Rainforest Foundation UK, the project is supporting the Ashaninka Community of the Selva Central region of Peru’s Amazon Rainforest. Deforestation is being prevented by helping the community to protect their rights and manage their forest land as well as developing sustainable livelihoods, with the aim of enabling Ashaninka to continue to be “guardians of the rainforest” just as they have been for centuries.

Contributors to the book include Sir Alan Ayckbourn, Jilly Cooper, Alan Titchmarsh, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Joanne Harris, Kay Mellor and Ian McMillan. Illustrations are by York artist Emily Sutton.

All have their own takes on who Betty might have been, to add to the theories that have sprung up over the years, among them that Bettys founder Frederick Belmont named his business for the late Queen Mother, Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, that she was a doctor’s daughter who died of tuberculosis and whose father’s practice became the first tearoom, or that she was a young girl named Betty who interrupted the first board meeting to decide what to call the business.

In his introduction to the book, Bettys family member Jonathan Wild writes:

“Take it from me – and I should know – Betty’s identity is not a family secret.

“Not one living member of our family knows for sure who the mysterious “Betty” was who providedthe inspiration for our Great Uncle Fritz “Frederick” Belmont’s tea room business

“There are plenty of clues, of course, and Uncle Frederick must be tickled pink in his grave at the thought that we are still puzzling over his romantic secret a hundred years later.

“Yes, Uncle Frederick was a great one for “tickling” the ladies, and in the years before his marriage to our Auntie Bunny in 1916, when he was a young journeyman confectioner and chocolatier plying his trade all over Yorkshire, he certainly “tickled” a fair few pretty girls.

“And we have his postcard collection from that time to prove it. Yes, postcards were the texts and emails of the day, the way of making and confirming assignations, written in the morning and delivered that same afternoon.

“But there’s not a message from a “Betty” among them.”

Below, we are publishing extracts from Who Was Betty? – and offering a lucky reader the chance to win a fabulous prize worth £1,000 by writing their own story about who Betty might have been, which we will publish in the Yorkshire Post.

Who Was Betty? is published on September 26, and will be exclusively available from Bettys six Café Tea Rooms in Harrogate, Ilkley, Northallerton and York or through the mail order service: telephone 01423 814008/www.bettys.co.uk  At £5.99, all profits will go to the Yorkshire Rainforest Project www.yorkshirerainforestproject.co.uk .

Extracts from the book – Who Was Betty?

Foreword by Prince Charles

When I launched my Rainforest project in 2007 one of the very first people to offer their support was Jonathan Wild of Bettys & Taylors of Harrogate. In the years that have followed, he has shown an unwavering passion for this crucial subject and I am delighted to be able to contribute a short foreword to this charming book, Who was Betty?

Quite simply, if we are to stand any chance of maintaining a stable environment for future generations, then we have to preserve the rainforests. Not only are they home to a dizzying array of biodiversity, including millions of species which are still unknown to Man, they are also the source of much of the rainfall which is so essential for agriculture around the world. Not only that, but their desperately important role as a carbon store means they are on the frontline in the battle to combat catastrophic climate change. To preserve an area of rainforest the size of Yorkshire is an important step and, as someone who loves and admires both Bettys and Harrogate, I can only congratulate most warmly Jonathan and everyone involved for the excellent work they are doing.

Alan Ayckbourn

The truth is there was no such person as Betty. “Betty”was dreamt up by the Tea Room’s first public relations officer in 1922, one Josiah Candlewick, who created the mnemonic Best Ever Tasty Teas Yet which, because of lack of space on the café’s original frontage, was immediately shortened to B E T T Y. This became colloquially known as Bettys and so finally, bowing to public pressure, the owners added the “s” to the signage (certainly more than Marks and Spencer ever did) which is how we know the much-loved Tea Rooms to this very day.

* Alan Ayckbourn is one of the world’s most popular playwrights, who has made Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre into a world-leading centre for original drama.

Barbara Taylor Bradford

The atmosphere in Mary Wood’s dining room in her Harrogate home was fraught with tension.

There they all were... her two sons, her son-in-law, and the new husband of her niece Claire, Frederick Belmont from Switzerland. They were endeavouring to think of a name for a new business Mary had invested in, and were not having any luck. The right name was elusive. It was young Frederick, a talented Swiss confectioner, who was starting his own business with his wife and Mary’s financial backing.

“What about the Swiss Tea Room?” one of Mary’s sons suggested. “It’s simple. People will remember it.”

“Too prosaic, and far too simple,” Mary pronounced in her blunt Yorkshire way. “But Mother, Swiss confectionery is mouth-watering,” another son pointed out. “And I second the name.” Mary shook her head, but then looked across at her nephew-in-law. After all, it was actually his talent she was backing and banking on. “What do you think, Frederick?”

“‘I agree with you, Mary, it is... dull.” “Quite right. It doesn’t work. We need something warm, inviting, personal. A name everyone can identify with.”’ At this moment, much to their collective surprise, the dining room door swung open and another person walked into their meeting, an uninvited person. They all stared at her. Frederick was particularly startled. He had never seen anyone quite as beautiful as this lovely creature walking toward the table. She was delicately made, delicious looking, positively delectable. Just like a piece of Swiss confectionery, he thought, and smiled to himself at this analogy. She had a peaches-and-cream complexion, exquisite features and silky brown hair touched with golden streaks.

* Barbara Taylor Bradford is one of the world’s biggest selling writers, with sales of more than 83m copies. Her latest novel, Letter From A Stranger, is out now, published by HarperCollins.

Jilly Cooper

Betty was a Yorkshire lass

Full of dreams and oozing class.

Ambition never let her rest

Till everything she made was best.

Now her name is known worldwide

An enduring source of Yorkshire pride.

* Jilly Cooper is a best-selling novelist whose books have sold 11 million copies in Britain alone.

Joanne Harris

Very few people know this, but the genius behind Bettys tea-shop wasn’t really a woman at all. She wasn’t even a baker. In fact, she was a small boy by the name of Charlie Finn, who lived on the back-streets of Harrogate and looked after horses for a living. But at 12 years old, Charlie knew what he really wanted to do. He wanted to be a baker. His local baker was called Mr Bettison, and he was well known throughout Yorkshire as the worst baker in the county. His loaves were hard, his biscuits were soft and his cakes were heavy as puddings.

To be fair to Mr Bettison, this wasn’t entirely his fault. He was a widower, and most of the work in the bakery was done by his daughter Matilda, who was good for nothing, he said, but talk, talk, talk. She couldn’t clean, she couldn’t sew and definitely couldn’t bake. Charlie saw the sad little pile of scones and the new batch of pastry that Matilda had left on the table, and with the instinct of all things baked, he saw where she was going wrong.

He added to the pastry some raisins, some cherries, some sugar, some lard and some secret ingredients of his own that to this day no-one but Bettys bakers know.

* Joanne Harris is an award-winning novelist whose books are published in more than 40 countries.

Name game: Tell us about Betty

Bettys is offering readers a fabulous prize worth £1,000 for the best tall story about who Betty might have been, which will be published in the Yorkshire Post.

The lucky winner will have the chance to take afternoon tea at home ‘the Bettys way’ with the new Bettys Heavenly Afternoon Tea Experience gift box. It contains the same high quality teaware and cake stand used in the Café Tea Rooms and a selection of Bettys cakes, biscuits and loose tea. Contents also include a tea pot, coffee/water pot, sugar bowl, milk jug, tea strainer and tray; Royal Doulton white bone china plates, cups and saucers for four people and three plates for the cake stand.

The Bettys Heavenly Afternoon Tea Experience is part of Bettys new range for 2011 and will be available later this year from Bettys online shop (www.bettys.co.uk  or telephone 01423 814008).

To enter, send your story by September 30 to: ‘Who Was Betty?’ Competition, Bettys & Taylors of Harrogate, Plumpton Park, Harrogate HG2 7LD. Entries should be a maximum of 250 words long. Please include full contact details, with preferably a telephone number and/or email address. The Editor’s decision on a winner will be final and no correspondence will be entered into.