The producers of All Creatures Great and Small have donated fresh fruit and vegetables to a Knaresborough community grocery.

Playground, which produces the hit Channel 5 television series, got in touch with Resurrected Bites to offer the food from its set at Grassington.

The production company sought out the community grocery to offer the fruit and vegetables instead of letting them go to waste.

Resurrected Bites, which is a charity, collects surplus food and distributes it to people in need.

Michelle Hayes, chief executive of the organisation, said:

“We have had donations from food photographers before, but this is our first donation from a film set.

“We love that Playground sought us out to donate the fruit and veg used in the filming of All Creatures Great and Small rather than just binning it at the end of the day.

“We hope that other businesses with food surplus will be inspired to offer us their food rather than binning it as we are struggling to meet the demand for food via our community groceries and ‘give as you can’ cafes and shops.”

Read more:

• Vulnerable people in Harrogate district having sleepless nights over rising bills
• Community grocery opens in Knaresborough to help people in need

Resurrected Bites currently runs community groceries at Gracious Street Methodist Church in Knaresborough and New Park Community Hub on Skipton Road in Harrogate.

All Creatures Great and Small was commissioned for a fourth and fifth series back in January. Filming began on the new series last month.

Based on James Herriot’s books about life as a vet in the Yorkshire Dales in the 1930s, the programme has proved a success and attracted millions of viewers.

Actor David Harewood sat down for a difficult conversation with the current Earl of Harewood House, whose family kept his four times grandparents as slaves.

The extraordinary moment was captured for a new Channel 5 documentary series 1000 Years A Slave, which aired for the first time last night.

Harewood House, an 18th century stately home near Harrogate, has been trying to take on the estate’s colonial past for more than 25 years.

In the TV programme Mr Harewood travelled to Barbados where he discovered the names of his ancestors, Richard and Betty.

He also discovered that they were slaves on a plantation owned by the Harewood Estate so set up a meeting with David Lascelles, the eighth Earl of Harewood.

The pair looked through the second Earl of Harewood’s account of slaves where Mr Harewood’s ancestors Richard and Betty were listed.

Read more:

• Harrogate group set up to support Black Lives Matter movement
• Councillor’s ‘white lives matter’ comments ‘deplorable’, says council leader

David Harewood, who was the star of Homeland and Blood Diamond, told Mr Lascelles:

“So my great-great-great-great grandparents were slaves on your family plantation. This is a fine house on beautiful grounds but it was built on the proceeds of slavery.

“Do you feel any guilt or shame about that?”

In reply Mr Lascelles explained that he does not feel guilty for the actions of his ancestors but added that he is accountable:

“I don’t feel that feeling guilty for something that you have no involvement with is a helpful emotion. I think we need to take responsibility for our own actions.

“Although I do feel accountable. There is nothing you can do to change the past but you can be active in the present.

“What I am responsible for is what I try to do about that legacy. To try in a small way to make that a force for good today.”

In a statement after the programme aired a spokesperson for Harewood House said:

“The Trust and the Lascelles family have been at the forefront of acknowledging the estate’s colonial past for over 25 years.

“Being transparent about colonial history and ensuring the Trust hosts much-needed, and sometimes difficult conversations is vital to calling out racism, and to forging new connections with visitors and the communities of the cities and countryside around.”

He conquered Europe in 2020 and tonight you can see how Harrogate’s Luke Richardson fared when he lined up against the best strongmen in the world.

Luke, 23, was one of 10 men in the final of the World’s Strongest Man, which is being broadcast on Channel 5 at 7.30pm.

The event took place in Florida in November and the Stray Ferret revealed last month how Luke fared.

If you want to know, you can type his name into the search function on our website but as many people don’t want the outcome spoiled, we won’t mention it here.

Whatever happened, 2020 was a remarkable year for Luke, a former lifeguard at Starbeck Baths who only transitioned from powerlifting to strongman just over a year ago.

He finished fourth at Britain’s Strongest Man and won Europe’s Strongest Man, which was held at Allerton Castle, near Knaresborough.

Read more:

• Gambaru family devastated by Harrogate gym closure
• New gym in Knaresborough despite closures elsewhere

All these events have been broadcast on Channel 5, providing huge national exposure for Luke over the festive season. He has 64,000 followers on Instagram.

Luke was one of 40 men who qualified for the World’s Strongest Man.

He finished second in his heat, which was shown on TV on Boxing Day, to American Jerry Pritchett to book his place in tonight’s final.

The final includes events such as the keg toss, Hercules hold, deadlift and the Atlas stones.

Luke has lived in Harrogate all of his life. He attended Starbeck Community Primary School and Harrogate High School and now trains at Absolute Fitness in Boroughbridge and LR Strength Shed in Wetherby, which he and training partner Richard Parish opened.