My Yorkshire: Tom Mellor

Tom Mellor and his wife Gill, a garden designer, run Wold Top Brewery near the Yorkshire coast and also farm 600 acres.

What's your first Yorkshire memory?

My late grandmother used to run a boarding house in Filey, in Rutland Street – she was a proper Yorkshire seaside landlady. The house was called Abbotsleigh and I can remember a short walk to the sea front and the roundabouts and the swings, and a lot of very fresh sea air. I remember going to visit her every Sunday evening because she and grandfather had one of the first colour TVs in the town, a rather temperamental machine. The programme we all used to sit and watch was The Black and White Minstrel Show.

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

The Yorkshire Wolds, no question. Everyone thinks of the Dales and of Holmfirth and of Heartbeat when this county comes up in conversation, but hardly anyone mentions the Wolds, they are almost completely forgotten and tucked away. And that's the way I rather like it, actually. I love the rolling countryside.

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

Gill and I are both keen cyclists – we did a weekend of orienteering on bikes and it was a lot of fun. I think that we'd get some of our like-minded friends together, wives and husbands, and we'd take off and visit the Hole of Horcum and then on to the North York Moors for about four or five hours, using both roads and tracks. We'd return slowly, drinking in the scenery and then, of course, stop off at a suitable pub somewhere and drink some good beer.

Do you have a favourite walk – or view?

There's a chalk valley at the top of our farm, and I can walk up there any time I feel like it, and just sit on the grass and contemplate the land around me. There are no bridle paths, no tracks, and there's no-one else to see. For me, it is just heaven.

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

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I do admire Geoffrey Boycott, but a lot of people have picked him. So I will go for Seb Coe, because I have very fond memories of cheering him on when he was at the peak of his running career. Now he's Lord Coe, I'd love to have him to myself for a few hours to really quiz him about how sport works within the political framework, and how policies

are made.

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

Michael Parkinson, because I love his old-school way of questioning and the fact that he also listens to the answers, and because he shares the same tastes as I do in music – jazz and big bands. And I'd like to ask Alan Bennett as well, a man who I have admired for years and whose books I snap up as soon as they are published. Mr Bennett is a creative genius.

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

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This may sound a bit tongue in cheek, but in fact I'm serious in choosing a real gem – Whitby Jet. There's something about that black polished carbon that really appeals to me. It looks so elegant. You

can keep your diamonds. I love Celtic-looking jewellery. It's very understated and simple and the Victorian ladies used to love it.

What do you think gives Yorkshire its unique identity?

Its size, its variability, the cussedness of the people – a Yorkshireman will never ever give in. He'll keep on going until

he's achieved what he set out to do, no matter how difficult. And the sense of humour, as well. I also love the fact that we live – no matter which part of Yorkshire you are in – in a very friendly county.

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

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I used to play rugby at Bridlington and I follow Rugby Union at all sorts of levels, and I'm always checking up on the scores and the result. I'm saddened to say that there's a smidgen of commercialism creeping in these days and I regret that. I'm all for simple old-fashioned camaraderie on the pitch. I don't want the game to go the route that football has.

Do you have a favourite restaurant, or pub?

I am going to be very diplomatic here because our business has the great good fortune to supply so many fine pubs, and to pick one out wouldn't be right.

They are all superb. But there's a small restaurant in Filey that we go to when we can't be bothered to cook, or when we just fancy a night out. It's called Bella Italia. Lovely food and their daughters went to school with ours, so we get treated as part of the family. It's very unpretentious and really good quality and value.

Do you have a favourite food shop?

There's a brilliant farmers' market at Driffield the first Saturday of every month, and Gill and I go down there and stock up with everything that we need. We know most of the stallholders, and yes, (whisper it) a little bit of bartering does go on. The range of produce is incredible and we ought to support our own.

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

So much for the better, I believe. I think that we've opened up, that we are far more amenable toward strangers and incomers, and that we market our unique identity exceptionally well. The regional food group is a great idea and helps brand us as something different. I think that we can be very optimistic.

Who is the Yorkshire person that you most admire?

Captain James Cook, for being a fearless explorer and navigator as well as being a thinker and a man of ideas, and Joseph Rowntree, who took a business, developed it, and who was a generous philanthropist who really cared about his workforce and how they lived outside the factory. Titus Salt is also up there on my list as well. I love my history.

Has Yorkshire influenced your work?

In every way – but particularly because we produce the best malting barley in Britain and possibly in all of Europe, and barley is essential to what we make. As a Yorkshireman, I'd have to say that, wouldn't I? Gill, who is from Canterbury, says that we only had some success because she introduced a southern gene to the DNA mix.

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

I fell in love with the books and plays of JB Priestley when I was at college, and I've loved them ever since. The Good Companions and Angel Pavement are just two of my favourites – the former having that lovely line about "coming from the Pennines, the backbone of England" in it. I've passed that love on to my daughter Jenny. And as for music, I really admire Mike Gordon, who runs Scarborough Jazz Club and plays there every week with his trio at The Cask. He's taken the autumn

Jazz Festival and made it into one of the leading events in Britain of

its kind, and more power to his musical elbow.

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

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York is obvious, because it has everything, but I'd also urge a visitor to go and see Huddersfield and Halifax, because of their architecture – there was such confidence in the 1700s and 1800s. If I can mention somewhere else, I'd tell them to go on a trip from Leeds to Liverpool on the canal and to take Gill and I with them. It's on our list of things to do.

YP MAG 17/7/10