ALAN BARKER FILES HIS LAST REPORT
Traditional & tasty fish and chips
TOP DJ Zoë Ball tucked into fish and chips last week, marking the launch of the Fish and Chip Fan Club.
About 10% of this countrys 6m tonne ware crop is sold through the 8500 fish and chip outlets, with 14% of adults eating the meal at least once a week.
A key aim of the initiative, according to Bob Griffiths of the British Potato Council, is to show people the value of the dish, both in cost and nutritional terms. "We are saying: Look, there is an alternative to McDonalds. It is still the original, most traditional – and best – takeaway."
But potato farmers continue to face a tough market with early-crop averaging little more than £70/t ex-farm early this month. "Early growers have really suffered," said Mr Griffiths.
Price stability is what everyone needs, says Alan Conway, who has been in the trade 40 years and runs the Upper Street Fish Shop in Islington, London, where the event was held. "We need farmers to have a good return. It is to no ones advantage to have rock-bottom prices."
*Details of the Fan Club are available on 0171-468 3548.
Did you know?
More than 70% of UK
people eat fish and chips more than once every six months and nearly 50% eat it once a month.
More than 310m meals were sold in fish and chip shops in the UK last year.
Not only was fish and chips not rationed during the Second World War, the
government even allowed mobile frying vans to carry it to evacuees around the country.
The first fish and chip shop is thought to have opened in the 1860s.
Source: SEAFISH.
Shoppers out of touch with seasonal home-grown food
BRITISH consumers are confused about what happens when on farms.
The public wants to buy home-grown food in season but, according to a national MORI survey, has lost touch with when fruit and veg is harvested.
About half are unaware that British apples are picked in September and October or that British new potatoes are available from May to June.
"The message is that the consumer ought to look for local produce – then it has to be British, has to be good and has to be fresh," says Alan Edwards of the NFU West Midlands, launching its New Season For British Food summer campaign.
Imports have "confused" the public, he says. Shoppers may not realise, for example, the runner beans they have been buying are from Portugal. This has hit the UK market, leaving growers facing a tough time. "Its been one almighty problem this season."
The Great Yorkshire
Show attracted more
than 122 thousand
people this year.
Photographer
Jonathan Page
captured some of
the attractions
Above: Pin up girls…it was on with pearls and black dresses for these ladies who bared
all for the WI calendar to raise money for leukemia research. But the wraps
are off again for the Christmas card they unveiled at the show – on which they just wear festive hats and a smile.
Above: CLA president Ian MacNicol, with beagles from the Ampleforth Pack. The signals the government is sending out are bad for the countryside, he claims.
Right: Use sunscreen…the sun was hot enough to tan a hide in the cattle lines.
Above:
This sunshine snoozer found comfort on a horsehair mattress.
Robin Keigwin of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society tested his strength on this "wackometer" to raise money for Leeds charity, Caring for Life.
The things you do for publicity…show director Christopher Hall swapped his bowler for a hard hat to shin up this 82ft pole for a pre-show photocall.
ALAN BARKER FILES HIS LAST REPORT
Few if any visitors to the GYS
could claim an attendance
record like that of our own
Alan Barker for whom it was
his 50th and final working
show. Tessa Gates reports
ALAN Barker, farmers weekly north-east correspondent went home from the Great Yorkshire Show with rather more than his usual notebook full of show news.
This time he carried a clutch of presents – silver salver, hip flask, framed caricature, inscribed tankard, malt whisky – tokens of esteem marking his 50 years of reporting on the show.
"It does not seem like 50 years since I trod the little green sods of Malton where the show was held that year. The following year it moved to this site at Harrogate, and was the first to have a permanent showground," says Alan, 71. He will no doubt be back next year but not to work, as he retires at the end of the month.
His wife, Jean, and daughter Kate want him to write his autobiography, Alan does not seem so keen. "It is time to put the pens away and do other things," he says.
His first job was with a firm of accountants but book-keeping was not his forte and his boss, who also owned the local paper, suggested he tried his hand at reporting. From the local Goole Times he moved to writing for the Northern Echo and the weekly Yorkshire Gazette before being head-hunted for FW in 1956.
"He tells my children some wonderful stories," says Kate, a photographer.
Certainly he has tales to tell, from his early days in the candle-lit cottage on the estate where his father was a forester to some of the characters he met in his working life, such as the farmer keen to show him his ditch-clearing methods. In front of a roaring fire "with half a tree on it" this chap proceeded to string together half sticks of gelignite to a fuse.
"I thought any minute we would be blown out of this world, " recalls Alan. "Next day he trod the line of gelignite into the bottom of the ditch, detonated it and the muck went 200ft up and came down spread all over the grassland. It took the bottom out very neatly but I would not recommend the method."
He has reported on every aspect of farming from hard news to features. His way of getting the story from farmers who were perhaps a little wary of this reporter arriving in the kitchen was to take five minutes to chat, notebook out of sight, so they could weigh each other up and Alan could show he knew a bit about farming, too.
* Many changes
He has seen a lot of changes in agriculture. Just occasionally editors have not given the space to his reports, on new ideas or methods, that he felt they warranted. "I remember going to a farm in Cheshire where the chap had just introduced cow cubicles. My copy was reduced to two paragraphs and a picture, but within months FW was giving page after page to the subject."
The nature of the job has meant he has had little time for hobbies, but he is well known in cricketing circles in the York area. He was a quick fast-bowler and played in the premier division senior league. He is a life member of his club, Osbaldwick. Cricket must be in the blood, Alans mother was an avid fan who could be relied on to always know the latest county cricket scores and his nine-year-old grandson Max wants to be a bowler, too.
Alan does not envisage being at a loss for something today when he has filed his last report for this magazine. "I have always quite fancied taking up bowls and I would not mind doing a spot of coarse fishing," he says. But first there is the garden to tackle at the bungalow he has just moved to at Stamford Bridge.
He is also looking forward to going out for the day with his wife Jean when the mood takes them. Jean met Alan at a ball and was very impressed by the handsome young reporter in his dress suit. She is still proud of him. He is a great family man and for the past eight years has enjoyed working with his daughter Kate at the show, between them providing reports and photographs. He is glad he has stayed in Yorkshire rather than pursuing a career in London.
"I could have moved down to work at FW in the days when the magazine was in Fleet Street, but I would have had to commute, leaving early in the morning and getting back late in the evening to miss the traffic. It would not have been good for family life," he says.
He has been loyal to FW for 43 years and probably would not be retiring had he worked for a lesser paper. "I might have liked to work just a day or two, but it would not be fair in this job. For FW you feel you have to give it your all."