Going with the grain

Surrounding the tables and chairs are shelves of clocks and barometers, book troughs, each one individually made.

The purpose-built showroom is light and airy and upstairs is an art gallery - featuring a selection of work of a dozen or so artists all living and working in the dales. And the whole building - with its stunning views - is pervaded by the clean smell of wood from the workshops.

It's a world away from a rusting corrugate iron barn in the corner of a field.

Philip Bastow is this year celebrating 25 years in business as a furniture maker. And, although he has moved only a few hundred yards from the bottom of the village to the top, he's come a long way.

"This is my fourth workshop in Reeth but it still seems only yesterday I was starting out," he says.

Progress over the years has not been entirely straightforward "Ebb and flow," he says, diplomatically, "ebb and flow".

There were problems with planning permission for the workshops, delays and hold-ups, the foot-and-mouth crisis "when they might just as well have put a bloody big gate across the road at Richmond and said Swaledale's closed" - and he went back to joinery to keep going, floods, the fuel crisis. "90 per cent of my work goes out of the dale, 60 per cent of it well out - down south or up to Scotland. When they couldn't get fuel, people couldn't come."

Despite all that, Philip's business is flourishing and his attitude to his work has changed slightly. Although just as careful and painstaking as ever, he is no longer a young man in a hurry.

"I think over the years, although I still have my ideas of what I want to do, it's not as complicated any more. Instead I keep it simple because I'm more inclined to let the wood dictate what I do with it. We have so many great British trees and the wood all has its own beauty so really it's a case of revealing that. I use a lot of elm, for instance, because it has such a rich grain.

"They must think I'm mad sometimes when I look at a piece of wood and say 'Ah yes, I know what I'm going to do with you'."

The classic case was a major piece of work for the church in Low Row, where the congregation wanted a new altar and communion rail made from a beech that had grown in the churchyard and had to be felled.

"I'd never really worked with beech much before, hadn't rated it really. But when I opened it up there was a black line all the length of it - it was just like discovering a fossil - and I knew straightaway that would be the communion rail. Then there was a natural bend in the wood, just made for the arches."

The altar and rail are delicate, beautiful, reflecting the pattern of the arched window above them.

Above all, Philip is proud to have his work on display locally "Quite a few churches now have some of my pieces and it's great that people round here appreciate what I do."

Maybe he was ahead of his time - a simple elegant chair was so slow to sell back in the early 80s that Philip nearly stopped making the design. "It was too modern, I suppose, people still wanted the heavier worked traditional ideas."

But time and taste have caught up with him and now the chair is one of the most popular items. The furniture is beautiful and, inevitably, not cheap - a chair can cost £400-£600. If I won the Lottery, I'd buy the lot.

"That's what everyone says," says Philip, "But what I say is that if you buy one of these, you have a piece for life - and beyond."

Much of his work is made to order. "People have an idea of what they want and we can work together on their designs," says Philip. "That way they have something that is truly individual and absolutely right for them."

His workshop is just off Silver Street with a small cluster of council-run workshops, including Stef's Models, Ian Whitworth's clocks, a glass designer, a photographer and a sculptor.

"It's a good group. We get on and work well together," says Philip.

Current preoccupations are to get more signs so visitors will know where they are. The art gallery, featuring work of a dozen or so artists, was a logical extension of Philip's work. "I see myself as an artist as well as a craftsman," he says.

In the workshop, Philip's apprentice, Liam, is working away at a table. Philip is passionate about training, about passing on traditional craftsman skills. Liam - as have Philip's other apprentices, including his own son, Mark - has won the Richmond Fellmongers' award as well as other awards for his well taught skills.

"But we're losing all our traditional skills. Children aren't getting the chance to learn the basics at school, or even to have a go. We put all the emphasis on academic skills but there are other skills that are just as important," says Philip.

'There's been a lot of fuss that we haven't got enough plumbers, but we haven't got enough properly trained cabinet makers either. Or any skilled craftsmen."

So strongly does he feel, that he is trying to bring it to national attention, start a campaign maybe. "Not only are we losing a whole generation of practical skills, but we've taken away the joy of making things and that's very important too."

Philip's other life is a world away from the workshop - he is sub-officer of Reeth retained fire brigade and proud of its good record.

But what with paperwork, battling bureaucracy, selling paintings and racing to fire and rescue, there is not so much time for actually making things.

"I get three or four hours a day, maybe late afternoon, early evening when the phone's stopped ringing, that I can just go back to working with the wood. I love it. Long after I'm gone, people will still be using my furniture. That's a good feeling."

* Philip Bastow furniture maker, Silver Street, Reeth, 01748-884555.

All types of furniture made to order, plus church and architectural commissions. There is also a range of small furniture on sale, plus clocks, barometers at around £110, book troughs for £98 and decorative teapot stands for £30.

Additive-free food

THE news this week that additives in food can alter children's behaviour won't come as a surprise to many parents, and one of our leading high street stores has already taken steps to remove them. Earlier this year, Marks & Spencer pledged to remove artificial colours and flavourings from 99 per cent of all the foods on sale in M&S stores by the end of the year, and by the end of June all the foods on sale in M&S stores were 100 per cent free from aspartame, one of the main culprits.

M&S has banned additives particularly associated with concerns about food intolerance and children's diets including artificial colours such as Ponceau 4R, Sunset Yellow, Carmosine and Quinoline Yellow, which are used in cakes and bakery. The retailer already refused to use more than half the additives permitted by the EU, including monosodium glutamate and tartrazine.