Bishop Auckland Food Festival 2022

 If Bishop be in Love with Food, Come on

This weekend is the annual Bishop Auckland Food Festival and this year is by far the best yet.  Combining street food, artisan producers and cookery demonstrations, there is something here for everyone and much more than you would expect.

The evolution of Bishop Auckland Food Festival has seen it move from the Palace grounds (where it was as much about arts & crafts as it was food)  into the market place, then up the lower part of Newgate Street, back into the market place and now it spreads up Bondgate and into the car park on the site of the old Bus Depot and Clarendon Motors.

Chilli Jam Man

The current layout is certainly the best; clearly lessons have been learned to give more space for the stalls, more room to wander and a better sense of identity.

Weardale Cheeses

Old favourites are here; the wonderful Weardale Cheeses are one of a number purveyors of dairy produce (blessed are they all), The Chilli Jam Man, Screaming Chimp and Twisted Curry are stalwarts of providing zip and zing to the taste buds while Geordie Bangers remind us that good sausages make great meals.  If it’s more than a sausage you’re looking for then Shaw Meats have a huge range of local meats, steaks, smoked and cured slices and brilliant versions of black pudding.

Pie'wich

Adding to these are some new attendees; national award winning Pie’wich who combine a Brioch dough as a pie case and fill them with amazing combinations like 3 cheese, Lamb and Rosemary, Sea Bass, and smoked sausage.  Wiga Wagaa add an international array of sauces and pickles perfect to create foods from the Caribbean, South Africa and the far east. 

AB Gold Rum

Locksley Gin

With all this food on offer you may be in need of a drink or two and this year the Food Festival represents the current trend and demand for all things Gin; Pitwheel, Little Quaker and Locksley are wonderful local distillers who know their craft, can guide and enhance your gin drinking with advice of how to serve and how to mix.  If you’re looking for something different to gin then the amazing and award winning AB Gold Rum is like sipping ambrosia (the food of the gods, not the rice pudding).

Pitwheel Gin

Gyros

Rose Cottage

Of course, you won’t just want to buy to take home, there is plenty of food cooked there for you to eat as you wander; Gyros’,  Armenian flat breads, Gourmet Sausage Butties, Halloumi Fries, Giant Yorkshire Puds and in Rose Cottage the best farmhouse bakers with pies, rolls and cannonball sized scotch eggs.

 

Grab a brew from Caps Off, the Cocktail Pickers Club or Gin and Tonia and sit in the sun enjoying the sea of smiling faces, the waft of delicious smells and the feeling that you’re at the best food festival in the North East.

Alf Ramsey Knew my Grandfather @ Darlington Civic

It's like a trip to Beamish - in boots  

I am a football nut - I love everything about it with a passion; the 4, 0 and 1 buttons on my Sky remote have all but worn away, my wardrobe is now full of replica shirts from over 30 years of having to have the latest style on launch day and if you called at the house you would be left in no doubt as to where my heart lies (sorry girls, but you will grow up & leave home - the Toon Army will always have time for me on a Saturday).

So whilst I am a lifelong, dyed in the wool Newcastle United fan (even our cats are black and white) I spent most of my childhood and adolescence living in Bishop Auckland and so I am well versed in the history of the amateur greats of South Durham.  Bishop Auckland and Crook Town dominated the amateur game for decades but I remember being in awe of the fact that West Auckland won the World Cup well before I understood that it wasn't the same sort of tournament as I had watched Argentina win in 1978 but that just added to the mystique of the 'old days' .

This play, brilliantly crafted and wonderfully cast doesn't just take the audience to the very first world cup back in 1909, it brings alive the cultures, the lives and most of all the humour of the early 20th century in a pit village in south Durham.  This is far more than a football story - it is Beamish in boots.

The story is built around a modern day non league assistant manager lamenting the fact that his ancestors were very much a part of the football tapestry which forms our modern game while he just couldn't get a break.  As he reminisces, the story is told in flashback to the West Auckland world beaters as they prepare for their trip to Italy, how they managed to raise enough money, the characters that went to build the team and the life stories along the way.  It is a stark reminder that back then travel outside of the village, let alone out of the country, was something most men rarely achieved - the scene where the lads try to work out where Italy is had the audience in stitches.  It is also a lesson in humility when you compare the way football used to be played - for the love of the game and the team spirit only, not for the hundreds of thousands of pounds and material trappings that so beset the current game.

Mixing the modern day with the past is this play's cleverest and most endearing quality - for the footie fool like me you can't help but spot the references to players, formations, tactics and 'gamesmanship' which it is suggested were formed over a hundred years ago by the lads from West.  There's even a cameo by Jeff Stelling courtesy of Sky Sports Centre updates.

Filled to the brim with North East humour mixed with real life pathos, this is a wonderful insight into hard working and hard playing men who used football as a brief escape from their lives down the pit. The language, slang and accents are all perfect (they would be when you realise that the cast are all drawn from the North East) leading to the melodic harmonies and verbal jousting for which this great part of the UK is known & loved. 

I urge everyone who has ever had a passing interest in the North East, football, local history or just great comedy to come and see this 2 hours of genuine laughter making, even more so if you're from Bishops or West as this is OUR history, OUR pedigree, OUR unique contribution to the world of football - bring yor maytes, bring yor lass, bring yor ma 'n' da and gan on the jornee with the mighty West Auckland.

Proceeds from this production are being very generously donated to Darlington 1883, the fan led group who are working very hard to protect and rebuild Darlington Football Club as we strive to get back into the football league.