The LORE OF THE LAND

THE CHARACTERS ARE AS QUIRKY AS THE SCENERY IS STUNNING IN A CHANNEL 4 SERIES FOLLOWING THE CHANGING SEASONS IN YORKSHIRE AND CUMBRIA

They’re the majestic national parks that are home to of Britain’s wildest and most beautiful landscapes – and some of our most engaging characters too. So it’s no wonder Channel 4’s The Yorkshire Dales And The Lakes: Season By Season, celebrating life through the year in England’s biggest expanses of protected countryside, has been such a delight. Now the show’s back with a look at spring. In Grasmere, Cumbria, father and son sheep farmers Peter and Robert Bland are at their busiest, marking up new lambs before setting them free on the open fell with their mothers. ‘It’s been hectic,’ says Peter, who must notch his entire flock on their ears with his farm’s mark so they can be identified if they get lost. ‘When this busy time’s coming up, you lie awake at night thinking, “How the hell are we going to do this?” But once the time comes you just knuckle down.’ As we see the lambs head up the rugged 2,000-acre common to explore their new home, Peter remarks, ‘They go this way and that. But they’ll stay there for their lifetime. We’ve bred them to grow up big and thrive, it’s a unique style of farming.’ More than a tenth of the Lake District is forested and to remain healthy it must be thinned to let in more light. Near Kendal, woodsman George Read, 75, and his son Kevin manage the forest with horses, and are now training George’s granddaughter Saskia, 20, in the skill of horse logging – the extraction of timber by horse. They’ve done it this way for centuries and no man-made invention has yet rivalled it. ‘You don’t find very many people my age doing it and hardly any women at all,’ says Saskia. ‘Everyone thinks of big strong men, but it’s not, anyone can do it.’ In Yorkshire, poet, playwright and broadcaster Ian Mcmillan, who narrates the new series, says, ‘I like the massiveness of Yorkshire, I think of it as Britain’s Texas. There’s still a sense of community and geographical tradition. Yorkshire people have that wonderful relationship formed by having to get up in whatever weather and off they go. You might walk past them but you wouldn’t see the cycle of their seasons, their relationship with these animals and how they all rely on each other.’ With spring comes birdsong from species thriving in the Dales thanks to gamekeeper Ian Sleightholm and his children, whose management of the moor has led to lapwings, curlews and merlins finding havens to breed in. Every spring he works with bird ringer David Banes to capture and ring chicks so their populations can be closely monitored. ‘This is a lifelong passion,’ says Ian. ‘My grandfather’s a countryman and he took me out and pointed out all the different birds and bird calls. Passing that knowledge on is something I think we’re losing nationally.’ In Wensleydale, 91-year-old Jane Kemp’s 60-acre woodland has become a sanctuary for the red squirrel. ‘My husband was a tree man so that was how the trees got planted,’ she says. ‘We didn’t introduce the squirrels, they just came. Non-native greys have pushed them further north, but we’re surrounded by hills with little vegetation, so we’ve got natural barriers to the greys.’ It’s left to Ian Mcmillan to sum up the appeal of the series. ‘It’s about people who uphold traditions and pass them down,’ he says. ‘Above all, it’s about incredible human endeavour.’ ■ Lisa Sewards The Yorkshire Dales And The Lakes: Season By Season, tonight, 8pm, More4.

Bluebells nod over a scene in the Lake District

Farmers Peter and Robert Bland