The Dales
Published: Tuesday, 7 February 2012, 1:16PM
**UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 00.01HRS TUESDAY 21st FEBRUARY 2012**
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“Remote communities, isolated farms, lush green valleys and limestone pavements – this landscape challenges the people who live and work here – there’s nowhere else like it in Britain. But it’s the warm Yorkshire spirit of the people who live here that keeps the heart of the Dales beating”. Ade Edmondson
ITV1’s popular series The Dales is back for a brand new run in 2012. Ade Edmondson returns home to Yorkshire to bring us the stories behind another summer in the life of the Yorkshire Dales.
Spectacularly beautiful it may be but the Dales are also a challenging environment for the people who live and work in some of its remote communities. Ade spent many of his childhood summers in the Dales with his family, and in this series he returns to meet old friends and make new ones.
He revisits Dales farmers Clive and Amanda Owen and their five children as they face another eventful summer on their remote farm in Swaledale, and pops in on mother and son farmers Carol and Phil Mellin who have set up a sheepdog training enterprise on their farm near Keighley.
Ade also meets community choir the Buckden Singers and joins in their rehearsals as they prepare for their annual summer concert, he’s interviewed by Drystone Radio’s ten year old DJ Daisy Watkiss – perhaps the youngest DJ in the country - and also meets horse trainer Simon West as he experiences the highs and lows of running a small stable yard in Middleham.
During the course of the series Ade also sees the Dales from above – in a thrilling helicopter ride – and from below as he explores one of its many caves.
The series was commissioned for ITV1 by Diana Howie, Commissioning Editor, Factual, and Alison Sharman, Director of Daytime and Factual and it has been made by ITV Studios’ Leeds and Manchester based arm Shiver. It is series produced by Moray London, executive produced by Shiver’s Creative Director, Mark Robinson and presented by Ade Edmondson for ITV1 and ITV1HD.