The Week in The Life column with Keith Tordoff

It takes lots of people to carry out all the tasks to make the area look special including local volunteers, businesses and the parks and garden team from Harrogate Borough Council. The team from Harrogate Borough Council are called the Nidderdale Group. Tim Scott has been part of the team coming to Pateley Bridge for the last six years but even more impressive is that he has worked for the council for 42 years come July. What an achievement!

Congratulations Tim and thank you for the work you do for Pateley Bridge and Nidderdale. A special thank you also to local resident Mrs Hinchliffe, assisted by her two grandsons, who planted out the Nidderdale Chamber of Trade planters at the front of shops with summer plants last week.

The winter plants from the planters have not been thrown away, they are now planted in the newly cleared borders at the Catholic Church on Panorama Way. At the Catholic Church, work to clear the grounds is going well thanks to the many volunteers who keep turning up to work on the project.

On Monday next week the TV cameras will be back at the church to record the progress made for the second series of the BBC programme ‘Britain in Bloom’.

Talking of filming, last Friday at our shop a TV crew filmed for a programme which will be shown on Channel 5 later this year. Taking part in the filming were local children Reuben, Freyja and Georgia Thompson and myself. The children arrived at the shop in their normal everyday clothes but once in the shop, they were transported back in time attired in Victorian clothes.

They looked fantastic and carried out their respective acting roles with aplomb.

Like the Thompson children there are lots of fantastic young people out there with lots of great qualities and skills.

Many young people are helped to develop skills through clubs, organisations and groups they join. On Monday evening Gloria and I were in Chipping near Clitheroe in Lancashire to give a talk to the Chipping Young Farmers. The young farmers groups are a great example of how young people are encouraged to develop skills which are useful throughout their lives.

Such groups organise everything from electing their own committee, to finding speakers for talks, organising events whilst raising money in the process for good causes. The young farmers also know how to make a proper cup of strong tea.

Young people and tea drinking – ah yes I can continue the theme.

Tim Ledbetter who runs Sypeland Outdoors shop on the High Street went with his wife Nancy to Buckingham Palace on Tuesday. Tim had been nominated to attend Her Majesty the Queen’s Garden Party for the work he has done in the community in his voluntary role as deputy of the Nidderdale Chamber of Trade.

I understand Tim and Nancy enjoyed a nice cup of tea in the Buckingham Palace gardens with their cucumber sandwiches and cake.

I hope the tea was from Yorkshire!

The connection between tea and young people is that Tim has been asked on his return to go into the school that his children attend to give a talk to all the children about his and Nancy’s once in a lifetime invitation to have tea with the Queen.