Winter Walks in Yorkshire (a programme worth watching!)
BBC Winter Walks is one of the few modern programmes on TV that is worth a look. Beautifully done and relaxing to see, six well-known people take various walks through the Yorkshire countryside. Their commentary is accompanied by weather, routes and wind speeds. It’s beautifully made and educational too.
Always follow the Countryside Code, to keep dogs and barnyard creatures safe. One of the walks features Morecambe Bay (always follow signs, to avoid dangerous tides and quicksand). If walking at the coast, read our post on keeping dogs safe by the seaside.
The presenters include Yorkshire Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, Rev Richard Coles and a lovely episode featuring former newsreader Selina Scott, who walks along the River Wharfe. She meets fellow walkers and old farmers along the way, finishing off with a pint at the local pub. It’s better than any meditation class!
She even recites poetry from Robert Frost and Shakespeare along the way!
Selina Scott (newsreader turned welfare campaigner)
Selina Scott is likely best know to most of us as the glamorous and beautiful newsreaders in the 80s and 90s. This programme is a revelation, with her gentle knowledge of nature and classic poetry. And a voice that should be on all relaxation and meditation tapes!
Born in Scarborough (England’s first seaside resort), she became News At Ten newsreader age just 29, and later presented one of the first breakfast TV shows. She has since said that her time on British TV was a ‘sex-obsessed nightmare’, claiming she was forced to kiss Jimmy Saville and refused to take part in the 40th anniversary celebrations, saying her complaints went ignored, due to the ‘masonic influence’.
At a time when others seemed to have no idea, Selina already had her suspicions, and had it written into her contract that no guests were allowed to kiss her, saying she found Saville repulsive. But to her bosses, he was ‘TV gold dust and untouchable’. Oh, if only they had listened to her?
She also interviewed Trump before he became President. And her questioning his honesty led to a program that he was so angry about, he began to publicly deride her, and bullied ITV into not showing the programme in the US.
Unsurprisingly, Selina ended up giving up the toxic world of TV news to run a farm, and now walks the hills, drink cups of black tea and present marvellous programmes like these. She was also instrumental in campaigning against the live export of animals (even turning into a Brexiter, so England could withdraw from European laws that allowed it).
She is still sceptical, concerned that the law that has now banned live export could still ‘shut the front door to leave the back door open, letting Northern Ireland and Ireland take the animals’.
Still strikingly beautiful in her 70s (she was friends with Princess Diana with whom she was constantly compared), today she campaigns for farmed animal welfare, tree-planting and native wildlife.
Selina says her proudest professional moment was exposing ivory poaching in Kenya with George Adamson (one of the couple featured in the film Born Free, weeks before he was killed by poachers). The programme led to an immediate ban on the ivory trade.
