The Dales Diary

People often ask me how the Dales Diary series came to be made in the first place. Well, oddly enough, the seeds were sown, not on the heather moors and wild hillsides of the northern hill country, but in the rather less inspiring landscape of West London.

It was here, in the BBC’s Lime Grove Studios in Shepherds Bush, that I was employed for many years in the 70s and 80s, most of the time travelling the length and breadth of the country as a roving reporter for the Nationwide programme. One of my colleagues there was a producer called Ian Squires, a native North-Easterner then living in London. (I, incidentally, continued to travel between the capital and my family home in the North, always resisting any permanent move south.)  Ian knew I loved doing the out-and-about stories – the more remote the locations, the better. For instance, I had walked part of the way across Scotland, following a herd of Highland cattle, to retrace the steps of the old cattle drovers. And I had sailed to Rockall, three hundred miles out in the North Atlantic, to plant a flag on the most isolated bit of rock in the oceans of the world. Ian also found remote Britain fascinating and, over a pint or two in the club bar, we would often talk about the glories of our own northern hills and dales.  

Let us fast forward to 1990. I was now working for Tyne Tees Television and Ian had taken over as the boss of Zenith North, the independent programme maker based in Newcastle. He felt that, over the years, regional television had failed adequately to reflect the wonderful natural treasures on its own doorstep. A case, maybe, of familiarity breeding contempt. He rang to tell me he had an idea for a series celebrating the life and times of the Dales and that Tyne Tees had agreed to commission it. And he asked if I’d like to report, write and present it. It was a wonderful challenge, right up my village street, so to speak, and I readily agreed.

The producer was to be Bill Jones, another old colleague from Nationwide, and one of the most  talented programme makers in the country. We had made many Nationwide films together, including the mystery of England’s lay lines and standing stones and the saga of the Irish canal project that had to be abandoned in the 19th century because the water, even in Ireland, refused to flow uphill! Bill arrived in Newcastle and immediately set to work developing the programme. At first it was going to be called The Dalesman. But, as Yorkshire folk will know, there was already a revered monthly magazine of that name. And although we were to develop a close and friendly relationship with them, we felt the title would be confusing. So we became the Dales Diary.

One of Bill’s master strokes was his choice of title music. He listened to hours and hours of classical works before finally putting on Ralph Vaughan Williams’s The Wasps Overture. In one section was the uplifting and inspiring air that was to become instantly recognisable as the Diary’s theme tune.

But the people and the landscape of the dales would uplift and inspire in equal measure. The response to the first programme was warmer and more supportive than we could possibly have hoped for. During that first series, the audience figures were higher than anyone in the television industry expected, regularly outstripping those of BBC’s Eastenders in the North-East region. And this was to continue, year in and year out. Before long, Yorkshire Television viewers as well as those in the Tyne Tees area were getting the programme. And, later, it was to extend into the Borders.

By now Peter Mitchell, the former head of programmes at Tyne Tees Television, had succeeded Ian Squires at Zenith. And when Zenith left Newcastle, Peter’s own production company took over the Diary’s reins. Viewers all over the North had taken the programme to their hearts. And, after a run of seventeen years, they were kind enough to vote it the most popular regional television programme of all time. The Diary’s award wasn’t without irony, followed, as it was, by ITV’s decision not to re-commission it. The harsh economic climate in commercial television probably made such decisions unavoidable. But the unique relationship the Diary had built up with viewers and the dales communities over the years made us determined that it should survive – in one form or another.    

 

Luke Casey

Presenter - The Dales Diary