Few days ago it was glorious sunny weather and I took a break from work to go for a walk along the track up to Keld by the River Swale. Meadow grass was silver with frost in the low winter sun shadows cast by dry-stone walls. A flight of oyster catchers flew overhead chasing a flock of crows, with their white and black wings flashing and their distinctive piping call reaching across the fields.

On my way back I passed by the community hall in the little village of Muker. I looked in the window and there were preparations going on for an event, so I summoned up some courage and went in to ask what was happening. It was the Muker Guild they said, and there would be a talk at 2 o’clock by a man who used to be a pastry chef for the Queen. Visitors were welcome at a charge of £3, which came with a cup of tea and slice of home-made cake afterwards.

I was lucky to get a seat. The hall was full. I got the last chair in the middle of a line. The speaker was astonishingly interesting about their experiences of living in Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Balmoral and on the Royal Yacht Britannia. But the main reason why everyone came from up and down dale came was that the speaker was born and brought up not far away in Arkengarthdale.

The speaker told us how they had a long walk through the fields to school, and that they often missed days because of weather or truancy. They then went to college in Scarborough to train for a City and Guilds qualification in catering; and to make ends meet also worked long hours at a local bakery and at banquets in the nearby Bolton Castle when they were home in the Dales.

A speculative letter to Buckingham Palace to ask if there were any vacancies for cooks resulted in an interview and a job, followed by five years of the most extraordinary and rarified life in the royal household.

In later life they became a hotelier in Harrogate, made possible through their royal reputation, but what impressed me most about the talk was how someone living in the depths of the Dales was able to change the course of their life through hard work and determination. There was some luck involved of course, but as the old saying goes “I’ve had a lot of luck in my life, but the harder I work, the more luck I get”.

Do you have any experience of an amazing positive life change that took you, or someone you know, into a completely different world than the one they were brought up in?

Rowan on the Moor

A Moodscope member