About The Dales Diaries

"The Diary" uncovers rural life which is depicted without sentimentality but with huge admiration for the people who shape the countryside we all value so much. This is no chocolate box world viewed through rose-tinted spectacles; The Dales is a tough, rugged place, ravaged by often severe winters and the isolation that many of us town-dwellers seek temporarily but prefer not to endure permanently.

Nowhere is this demonstrated more than in the agricultural industry. Farmers are the caretakers of our countryside, the very lifeblood of our villages and towns. They have faced extraordinarily testing challenges in recent years and have met those challenges with resolution and innovation...a desire to 'keep going' despite the odds in order to preserve this unique environment for the generations still to follow.

The inaccessibility of the Dales inevitably creates tight-knit communities that mange to be supportive and yet welcoming at the same time. Towns like Pateley Bridge, Hawes, Alston and Hawick; villages like Reith, Danby, Talkin and Kirkby Malzeard help to provide the drumbeat of Dales life but they are not untypical, there are dozens more like them that somehow manage to exceed the sum of the individuals that live inside their boundaries. They provide the added value that perhaps springs from the land itself.

That is why The Dales attracts and inspires so many creative people who add much-needed texture to our lives. I’ve lost count of the number of writers, musicians, artists, sculptors, carpenters and craftsmen that we’ve featured in ‘The Diary’ – their talents and skills are breath-taking and it would be an injustice to single out individuals.

Whatever we do, wherever we go we are dumbfounded by the ability of the people we meet. We have been lucky enough to have been able to expand our transmission area over the years. We began in the North Yorkshire Dales and Moors and gradually leaked ourselves into Teesdale and Weardale. In recent years we have been able to spread our net even further into Northumberland, Cumbria and the Scottish Borders and what a wealth of great human stories we have found there. These stories are not new but they are a revelation to our audience who we know from letters and e-mails, are delighted that we have included them. Inclusiveness is a massive reward for us as programme makers. We hope, and believe that we are part of The Dales Community…. We do not make a programme for you (we hope) we make it with you. The Dales Diary has been incredibly popular over the years and we believe that is because we have remained loyal to Dales people. We hope to carry on our work for many years to come. Making it has been a privilege…ending it would be a tragedy.

Peter Mitchell
Series Editor - The Dales Diary