“To connive at the killing of animals, while being too lily-livered to kill them yourselves is despicable”
John Seymour- ‘The Fat of the Land’

Jamie Oliver’s mission to take young people off the dole and then turn them into chefs isn’t just a stunt for a TV show. Long after the TV series has ended Jamie continues to recruit young trainees- except that now there are 28 rather than 15. Every year they are despatched to Peter Gott’s farm, to see a good old fashioned free range pig farm in operation. Peter is, I would say, the Lake District’s greatest ambassador, regularly appearing on TV with Jamie Oliver and Jimmy Doherty and supplying his pork and wild boar meat to the great and the good of London. This is the 9th consecutive year in which he has taken in Jaime’s trainees.

Tonight Peter brought Jamie’s latest batch of 28 youngsters to the Sawrey Hotel where they enjoyed a game pie in the Sawrey’s beautiful new bar. They had spent the day being taught by Peter how to wring a cockerel’s neck. Tomorrow they will clean, pluck and cook the birds. They spoke about their adventure with enormous enthusiasm- it’s clear that Peter’s great gusto has rubbed off on them.

The Sawrey Hotel is at Cuckoo Brow, about which Beatrix Potter wrote one of her tales, and although it calls itself a hotel, in reality its a pub with rooms, 19 of them. It has been serving beer for more than 300 years, the last 42 of them by the Brayshaw family, but from today by Dan Shrieber, who became the Landlord, in a joint venture with South Lakes Hotels. Soon after we had completed all the formalities of the purchase I got chatting with an elderly couple who were staying in the hotel. They told me that they had been coming to the Sawrey Hotel for 55 years and stayed 8 times last year. I’m sure this makes them the Lake District’s most loyal customers- which says a lot for the Brayshaw family and gives Dan quite a lot to live up to.