Writers on menu as Dales food fair pulls in the crowds

THOUSANDS of visitors and dozens of exhibitors revelled in the return of spring at the Dales Festival of Food & Drink at Leyburn, “capital” of Wensleydale.

The festival, which is backed by the Yorkshire Post, opened on Saturday and is on for a third day today.

Gervaise Phinn, famous for his memoirs of life as a Dales schools inspector, is today’s guest at the festival’s Speakers’ Corner. Peter Robinson, author of the DCI Banks novels, and Martyn Johnson, who has a current best-seller with What’s Tha Up To, recalling his days at a Sheffield policeman, packed the marquee on Saturday and yesterday.

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Among the new businesses running stalls is the Homegrown Garden Company, which is part of the network set up by Gillian Hodgson of Everingham, near York, to get English garden-grown flowers back into shops increasingly filled with imports. Barney and Clare Wrightson picked up on the idea when they returned to their roots, near Darlington, with twins in tow and a third baby on the way, and were at the festival to show and sell a range of rare tulips and cornflower seedlings.

The festival was launched in 2002 to help the rural recovery from foot and mouth in 2001 and has grown every year since. Administrator Sandy Carter said: “We had 11,000-12,000 visitors over three days last year and we are on course to top that.”

One new idea this year is a promotion involving discounts in Leyburn shops for festival ticket holders. The festival site postcode is DL8 5SG. See www.dalesfestivaloffood.org/