Royal Visit by HRH Princess Royal 2008

We received a phone call one day from a soft spoken man calling himself Kevin Sharp, Secretary to the Lord lieutenants office asking us if we would be so gracious as to allow a visit to our Farm and Creamery by HRH Princess Royal.

Well as you can imagine we just thought it was a wind up, so immediately we went onto the Internet to search for Kevin Sharp, to our astonishment he was who he said he was, Robyn rang him back and apologised for being abit blunt with him, he just chuckled and said i fully understand, its not everyday you get a request from a member of the Royal Family to visit you.

While Princess Anne was staying at a friends estate in Wakefield she had been reading the Yorkshire Post, just at that time we were featured in the paper as Farm Of The Week, she read the article and was so impressed with what we were doing that she asked the Lieutenants office to contact us to request a visit.

We accepted the request and they said they would be in touch when a date could be arranged, this was in December 2007.

For a while nothing seemed to be happening and we got abit worried that the visit wouldn't go ahead, but apparently they were doing the necessary security checks on us as she is the Queens only Daughter and you can't be too careful.

A date was finally arranged for 17th July 2008 as she was in the area on official visits anyway, this gave us just a month to get the farm ship shape.

From then up to the visit its self we were frantic, running around like headless chickens sorting things out and getting prepared.

We were then inundated with security personnel from the local police, MI5 and the Princess Royals personal Protection team checking the farm out and going through the route the Princess would be taking through the farm and Creamery.

On the day itself security was tight, only people we had invited could be here and the police needed a list of those people to check them at the bottom of the farm lane where police motorbike riders were on duty, security had a final sweep of the farm and house with sniffer dogs 10 minuets before she was due to arrive, the stage was set.

The motorcade was coming, 2 motorbike outriders, 2 black armoured Range Rovers in which the Princess was in one, followed on by 2 more motorbike outriders, what a sight looked like the US President was coming.

We were waiting to receive her in the yard, she emerged from one of the Range Rovers with her lady in waiting and the Queens representative, Colonel Roberts in full military dress, we greeted her and escorted her into the house where we had arranged to have coffee with her and a chat.

It was so unreal, the Queens Daughter chatting to us, in our dinning room over coffee and home made Parkin, there had been about 10 minuets allocated to this part of the visit but we had been so engrossed in our conversation about what we were doing that we didn't emerge from the house for another 45 minuets.

We took her around the Dairy and Cheese making facilities before presenting her with an hamper full of our various cheese's, she then went on to look at the baby calves where we introduced her to Cheese maker Scratter, one of our ladies that won best milk in class at the Yorkshire show in 2007.

She thanked us for allowing her to come and visit, wished us good luck for the future and said goodbye.

We both felt so proud to have been able to entertain the Princess, it will be a day we will never forget.

David & Robyn.

Yorkshire Rural Awards 2008 "WINNER"

In 2008 we were nominated, and to our genuine surprise won our category for the Yorkshire Rural Awards, in the category of Food & Drink Producer Of The Year.

We are not sure who nominated us but it was a real experience and a great honour to go to the Awards evening being held at the Pavilions Of Harrogate.

The event was black tie with a Champagne reception followed by a 4 course meal.
After our meal the awards ceremony began. the host for the evening was none other than the best selling Author Gervaise Phinn, he was fantastic, a very funny man.

He began by reading some extracts from his latest book, all about his time as a school inspector and the interaction he had with the children during that time.

He then got down to business, working his way through the various categories until he got to our category. To say we were nervous would be an understatement considering we had never been to anything like this before, let alone being in the top three to win.

When he finally called our name out we just couldn't believe it, i had to almost drag Robyn from the chair such was her shock, receiving our award on stage from Gervaise with Robyn made me feel the proudest man alive.

After the awards were over all the winners had a group photo taken with Gervaise and also Sir Ken Morrison who had been Honoured as Yorkshire Man Of The Year.

Later we were congratulated by Gervaise Phinn, the Lord Lieutenant of West Yorkshire Dr Ingrid Roscoe, Lord St Osworld of the Priory Wakefield and Sir Ken Morrison to mention but a few.

Driving home that evening i don't think we said much to each other, i think we were in shock, the lovely glass award takes centre stage on our welsh dresser in our dinning room.

A truly memorable occasion that we will never forget, and a big thank you to those who nominated us for the award.

David & Robyn