Janet Street Porter on why she loves the Dales

Viewers may not have been surprised to see the Dales near Harrogate feature in a major TV show on lovely rural walks. But they surely didn't expect to see Janet Street Porter eating a pork pie on Pateley Bridge's high street!
Broadcaster Janet Street Porter walking with members of the Ramblers' Association West Riding Area.Broadcaster Janet Street Porter walking with members of the Ramblers' Association West Riding Area.
Broadcaster Janet Street Porter walking with members of the Ramblers' Association West Riding Area.

The well-known media personality, journalist and broadcaster, who revolutionised youth TV in the 1980s with her groundbreaking Network 7 on Channel Four, has been talking about why she appeared on ITV recently extolling the virtues of the Pateley area before millions of viewers.She even found time to pop into both Weatherhead’s and Kendall’s butchers on Pateley High Street and sample their wares.Editor for two years of The Independent on Sunday and a former president of the Ramblers’ Association, Janet should know the area well - she’s got a smallholding in upper Nidderdale just ten miles from Pateley Bridge where she has lived on and off for the past 23 years.Janet said: "I have had a house in Nidderdale since the late 1970's. I used to live in Darley but have steadily moved up the Dale."I love the upper dale for the walking and the solitude, it's a unique landscape, and Pateley Bridge is a lovely town. I walk in all weathers, usually by myself."I have been going to both butchers for as long as I can remember, and I have had quite a few birthdays at the Sportsman in Wath - the food is very good."This great champion of the Dales, and occasional Loose Women panellist, was one of several celebrities doing their bit as part of ITV’s Britain’s Favourite Walks: Top 100 - alongside the likes of Ade Edmondson, Larry Lamb and Robert Bathurst.Presented by Julia Bradbury and Ore Oduba, the results were determined by public vote.Unsurprisingly, the Lake District polled strongest of all with the number one spot being taken by Helvellyn.But the Brimham Rocks area did claim the number 49 spot.ITV’s Britain’s Favourite Walks: Notable entries1. Helvellyn, Lake District2. Snowdon, Wales3. Malham and Gordale circular walk, Yorkshire7. Buttermere circular walk, Lake District15. Ben Nevis, Scotland17. Whitby to Robin Hood’s Bay, Yorkshire36. Ingleton Falls, North Yorkshire49. Brimham RocksITV’s two-and-a-half hour broadcast was the latest in a series of prime time publicity coups for Nidderdale.Last April saw latest edition of Clare Baldwin’s long-running BBC Radio 4 series Ramblings come to Pateley and the Nidderdale Way And this spring will see Norman Goostry, a vteran Second World War hero from Pateley Bridge, featuring - alongside footage shot last year at the town’s 40s’ Weekend, in a BBC TV documentary, A1 - Britain’s Longest Road.