My Yorkshire: Garry Lyons

What's your first Yorkshire memory?

I remember driving up the A1 in the mist from London to visit a former schoolfriend of mine who had started at York University. I must have been 18. I had only just got my licence, and was in my dad's old Skoda Octavia, which was rust on wheels. I was so terrified I just stayed in one lane. I arrived at night, found my friend, and stayed up late playing poker. The following morning, it was sunny and the campus lake looked beautiful. By the next autumn, I was a student at York University myself.

What's your favourite part of the county – and why?

I still have a soft spot for York. The view of the Minster from a distance brings memories flooding back, and I still get a thrill walking around the city walls. The place is steeped in heritage, but it retains a down-to-earth, functioning, urban quality. Its history is its greatest asset, but they mustn't let it become a theme park. It's a place where people work and live.

What's your idea of a perfect day, or a perfect weekend, out in Yorkshire?

A great day out is a visit to The Forbidden Corner in Tupgill Park, near Leyburn, a four-acre garden packed with follies, jokes and surprises, laid out like a maze of tunnels, chambers and passageways. You enter through a giant's mouth. Repulsive dwarves jump out at you. Fountains spring up in front of you as you're walking along a path. It's like being in a giant computer game. Fantastic.

Do you have a favourite walk – or view?

When the family lived in Rawdon, we regularly went to Otley Chevin. The way the view of Wharfedale and North Yorkshire suddenly opens out in front of you is quite extraordinary. It's very easy to forget you're so close to Leeds. The walks there have such variety – wooded paths, rocky outcrops, bridleways, an inspired sculpture trail. And a caf with ice creams to keep the children happy.

Which Yorkshire sportsman, past or present, would you like to take for lunch?

Coming from south-west London, I'm a Chelsea supporter (sorry!). So I'd love to spend an hour with Ken Bates, to find out what it was like making the utterly unlikely move from Stamford Bridge to Leeds United. He'd have to pick up the bill though.

Which Yorkshire stage or screen star, past or present, would you like to take for dinner?

Judi Dench and Sean Bean spring to mind. But top of the list would have to be Patrick Stewart. How cool would it be to be beamed up to the Starship Enterprise for a date with Captain Jean-Luc Picard?

If you had to name your Yorkshire "hidden gem", what would it be?

St Mary's Church, Lead near Towton. It's a beautiful, melancholy medieval chapel that sits alone in the middle of a field. The hamlet that once surrounded it has long since disappeared. The structure has been lovingly restored by the Churches Conservation Trust. It is said to have offered shelter to soldiers in the Battle of Towton. Now it's a great hideaway for ramblers and sheep.

What do you think gives Yorkshire its unique identity?

The fact that it actually has an identity. I grew up in an area of suburban sprawl, and – much as I love central London – I've always been struck by the sense of community that exists in Yorkshire. There's nothing bland about the county. It's not driven solely by materialism or consumerism, as in many parts of the country where individual character is flattened out. Each Yorkshire town or city has its own distinct personality, and the countryside is both stunning and

very diverse.

Do you follow sport in the county, and, if so, what?

I've whiled away many an hour at Valley Parade and Elland Road, and at Headingley following both codes of rugby. But the greatest sporting pleasure I've had is supporting my two children in their various sporting exploits. Hannah, now 24, competed in Modern Pentathlon to British Junior level. Modern Pentathlon consists of five disciplines – running, swimming, shooting, riding and fencing. So there was a period where Hannah was training for two sports a day. That, plus competitions all round the country, kept my wife and I busy for a few years. David, who is 21 and now captain of the Glasgow University squash team, learnt his game under Peter Edwards, the youth coach at Chapel Allerton in Leeds. Dave also played rugby for his school, Benton Park, and junior football for various clubs in the Aireborough district before briefly joining the Guiseley Academy. So many a Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning has been spent treading muddy touchlines in all weathers, from snow to torrential rain and roaring gales.

What about Yorkshire's cultural life?

I owe my career to it. I was given my first professional break as a young scriptwriter by a small-scale theatre company in Bradford, and one job in the region has led to another ever since. I was director of the Theatre in the Mill, Bradford, went on to work for Yorkshire Television and other Yorkshire TV companies, and now I'm writing for West Yorkshire Playhouse. We rightly take pride in our big cultural institutions – Opera North, Northern Ballet, the National Media Museum. But it's the local, small-scale organisations that provide the training opportunities for future artists, and act as foundations for the whole cultural sector.

Do you have a favourite restaurant or pub?

The family's current favourite restaurant is Thai Jantra in Boston Spa. We generally end up there on birthdays. Pubwise, it's hard to beat the Emmot Arms in Rawdon, although The Arabian Horse in Aberford deserves a mention for its unique name. Whitelocks in Leeds is good for its olde-worlde charm.

Do you have a favourite food shop?

The Village Bakery on Town Street, Rawdon, opposite where we used to live. A big thank you to Glen and Helen for keeping us in bread and cakes for 15 years.

How do you think Yorkshire has changed, for better or for worse, in the time that you've known it?

I'm not sure about the region as a whole, but Leeds has changed massively since the early 1980s. The city centre was dead in those days. You'd go to the cinema on a Saturday night and barely see a soul.

It couldn't be busier now, and that's got to be a good thing, even if the Kaiser Chiefs' I Predict a Riot accurately captures the seamier side. At my age, I prefer the theatre and a restaurant rather than venturing into clubland. But my children had a great time growing up as teenagers in Leeds.

Who is the Yorkshire person that you most admire?

On a serious note, Joseph Priestley – discoverer of oxygen, religious dissenter and supporter of the French and American Revolutions, who spent his final years in Pennsylvania after his house was burned down by a mob. On a lighter one – Jarvis Cocker. Common People is one of the great pop lyrics.

Has Yorkshire influenced your work?

Massively. Much of my original writing has had a Yorkshire connection, although generally in a kind of twisted, surreal way. In my play Mohicans, two teenage punks accidentally shoot an old lady in a corner shop, and flee the scene on to Woodhouse Ride in Leeds. There they get lost in some woods and emerge in 18th century New England, where they are pursued by bluecoated French militia like two doomed Mohawk braves. My play Wicked, Yaar!, which I wrote for the National Theatre, is set in the "City of a Thousand Tower Blocks", a mythical version of Bradford as if it was a place in the Tales from the Arabian Nights. The story mixes cricket, bhangra music, and street aggro, with genies, flying carpets and a magic chest chain.

Name your favourite Yorkshire book/author/artist/CD/performer

We have our national treasures, like Alan Bennett and David Hockney. But let me mention some unsung heroes. Mike Kenny, who has written Cinderella (also running at West Yorkshire Playhouse this Christmas) is one of the county's leading playwrights, but you probably won't have heard of him because he mostly writes

for children and young people. Gail McIntyre, who directed Cinderella, is one of our most imaginative theatre brains, and David Hamilton, who founded Phoenix Dance in the early 1980s, has had a deep impact on the development of dance regionally and nationally. There's also the York-based children's author Martin Riley, who devised the Bafta-nominated children's comedy series The Worst Witch, from the books by Jill Murphy, which I was lucky enough to write for and became a global hit.

If a stranger to Yorkshire only had time to visit one place, it would be?

Bombay Stores in Bradford. It'll tell you all you need to know about what a vibrant, multi-cultural place Yorkshire has become.

Garry Lyons's adaptation of The Secret Garden, this year's Christmas production at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, runs until January 23.