JUDY Bell, the founder of Shepherd's Purse cheese company, is to feature in a television series on food heroes.

The accolade came as something of a shock to Mrs Bell, who was busy in her farmhouse at Newsham, near Thirsk, preparing dishes for a new series of recipe cards when her telephone rang.

"I had an hour's notice and then Rick Stein and a BBC team arrived," said Mrs Bell, seen, right, with Mr Stein.

The famous television seafood chef had come inland and was trawling for personalities for his new BBC2 series Rick Stein's Food Heroes, to be screened in August, featuring people who are preserving this country's culinary heritage and producing real food.

Having heard about Mrs Bell and her revival of an old Wensleydale method of making blue cheese with ewes' milk, followed by her special cows' milk blue and then her revolutionary buffalo blue, he was keen to include her prize-winning cheeses in his programme.

His cameraman filmed the chef and the cheesemaker exchanging views, touring the farmhouse dairy and newly expanded production area - and was able to film Mrs Bell's photographer shooting the range of Shepherds Purse cheeses for company literature featuring the new corporate identity.