The Week in the Life column with Keith Tordoff

Happy New Year! All the best to everyone for 2019. I am sure the years are passing faster or is it just that time flies when your having fun? Well I loved last year for so many reasons and I am now looking forward to all the exciting projects I will get involved with this year.
The wonderful displays of flowers earned Pateley the Best Village accolade in the Yorkshire in Bloom competition.The wonderful displays of flowers earned Pateley the Best Village accolade in the Yorkshire in Bloom competition.
The wonderful displays of flowers earned Pateley the Best Village accolade in the Yorkshire in Bloom competition.

I am already planning for World domination for Pateley Bridge and Nidderdale. Okay maybe a bit farfetched but why not aim high and come down a little bit. Pateley Bridge and Nidderdale frequently receive national recognition whether it is because of visiting celebrities like Clare Balding OBE, Sir Sydney Samuelson CBE or from publicity in the press or national TV coverage of the area.

I am delighted that the area will have some amazing national TV coverage to start the year which helps put Pateley at the forefront of people’s minds for places to come and visit. In February on BBC1 prime time, the programme ‘Britain in Bloom’ will show the Pateley Bridge in Bloom group as they chase the title Best Village in the Yorkshire in Bloom competition.

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Spoiler alert – you most probably know anyway Pateley won the competition.

I am sure the programme is going to be really interesting showing the community working together and showcasing how beautiful Pateley Bridge is. I am told if this was paid for advertising – which of course the BBC do not do – it would cost many hundreds of thousand of pounds. This is the second series of the programme and the places featured in the first all reported an increase in visitors to their towns or villages after they were featured on TV.

I chair the Pateley Bridge in Bloom group and I hope to be able to let you know very soon whether Pateley will be invited to be part of the Royal Horticultural Society national competition following on from last year’s success in the Yorkshire in Bloom competition.

Also in February a Channel 5 TV programme filmed in Pateley Bridge and featuring local school children will be aired.

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I will provide times and dates for both TV programmes in this paper and on the Pateley Bridge and Nidderdale Facebook page once I have them confirmed.

On Sunday 5 May, Pateley Bridge will once again be the centre of media attention when the Tour de Yorkshire cycle riders come through Nidderdale and down what is now recognised as the most iconic High Street of the route. We will put on a spectacular show to give the riders, visitors and press a ‘reet’ proper welcome.

The Nidderdale Chamber of Trade who organise the reception to Pateley for the tour like a challenge so we have decided the whole weekend should be a spectacular show so the fun starts the day before on the Saturday. Book your holiday now for a weekend stay in Pateley Bridge and by the way we have arranged for the sun!

Oh and then we do it all again in September when the riders of the UCI World Cycling Championship come down the High Street over two days. The eyes of the World once again on Pateley Bridge and Nidderdale. World domination?

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Next up in October it will be the third Nidderdale Food Drink and Wellbeing festival and before you know it, Christmas. As the Christmas late night opening event in Pateley was so successful last year the Nidderdale Chamber of Trade who organise it have decided to hold it on two evenings in the month. For the diary they will be held on the Fridays of 13 and 20 December.

There you go time does fly by – another year over and a new one just begun!