Even in the remotest parts of the Dales, reality TV can still bring overnight fame

The Owens family don’t have many visitors.

Living on a remote farm in Ravenseat, passing Coast to Coast walkers occasionally drop in for tea and scones, but for much of the year, Amanda, her husband Clive and their five children have the run of the place. The family like the sense of isolation – it was one of the reasons they set up home there – but last summer they Owens welcomed a film crew into the fold and the family became one of the stars of the new ITV series The Dales.

“When the cameras first turned up we all tried to be on our best behaviour,” says Amanda, whose fifth child was just a few weeks old when presenter Adrian Edmondson and an army of technicians and producers arrived in Ravenseat. “But after a while you do forget they are there and you just have to hope they edit out the bad bits. I spend my life in wellies, there’s nothing glamorous about it, but they seemed happy to film whatever we were doing.

“Of course you worry how you will come across, but we agreed to do it because we thought in years to come it would be nice for the children to look back on. It’s nice to look at old photographs, but they will have an entire television series.” The Dales also looks set to make a star out of teenage farmer Philip Mellin. He turned out to be a natural in front of the cameras, whether it be talking about the death of his father just a few years earlier, or his plans to open a sheepdog training school.

“I guess people will start to recognise me,” says the 17-year-old, who has only ever dreamed of working full-time on the farm. “But I don’t see myself as a star. I’m a farmer who just happens to be on television.”

With its panoramic footage of the countryside and heartwarming tales of the people who live there, The Dales is a gentle watch and the only muckraking is that done by Philip in the cowshed. However, even the most apparently innocent ventures into television have the habit of leaving a nasty taste in the mouth. The residents of Grassington are still divided over the Channel 4 show Love Thy Neighbour which sees contestants vying to win a house in the picturesque market town.

The series is approaching its conclusion and while many embraced the project, seeing it as a way to raise Grassington’s tourist trade, a significant number objected, fearing the programme would trot out the usual northern stereotypes. A series of public meetings did little to allay their concerns and even now there are rumblings of discontent.

“You can’t please everyone, but I think the programme has done Grassington proud,” says Jane Ellison Bate, who, along with her partner Mark Bamforth, acted as mentors to the competing families. “The only complaint I have, is how bright my eyeshadow looks. Every time I see the opening credits I wince slightly. The show was never about getting our faces on television, it was about letting people know what a fantastic place Grassington is. It’s early days, but visitor numbers seem to be up and for a lot of us, it has been a real blessing.”

Occasionally, a programme comes along which strikes such a chord with viewers, that it also brings overnight success to its stars. Back in 2007 Kristina Grimes from Harrogate reached the final of The Apprentice. She eventually lost out to Simon Ambrose, but in the weeks that followed the pharmaceuticals manager was inundated with offers of TV work.

While flattered by the opportunities, each was politely declined. Instead Kristina returned to Yorkshire, where she is now sales director for an asset management company. “I had 140 job offers in one day. I know because I, quite anally, counted them,” she says. “A lot of them were from companies who just wanted me on board because of the marketing potential of having someone whose face was known from The Apprentice.

“I did love being in front of the camera, but I also knew that at the very most I had a shelf-life of a year, and what about the next 25 years? If you flaunt yourself too much quite quickly you can make yourself completely unemployable. Once I stood back from it, I knew that I had to get my head down and get a job.”

A single mother, Kristina’s son was studying at Newcastle University when she applied for The Apprentice and she admits she never really considered where the publicity from the show might lead. “When I was raising my son, my career had to take a back seat. I felt I was probably a couple of steps behind where I might have been. When he left home, I guess I thought, ‘Right, Kristina, now’s the chance to prove whether you really are as good as you think you are’. I saw The Apprentice as a way of getting a push up the ladder.

“It was never about building a character,” she adds, referring to Katie Hopkins, the third series’ pantomime villain. “Katie had a good innings. I imagined she made a lot of money in those first couple of years, but it’s hard to sustain it. You soon become yesterday’s news.”

Throughout the series, Kristina was a favourite with the public, but fellow runner-up, Claire Young, felt the full force of the media when she emerged as a figure of hate.

“The most difficult thing was seeing a picture of myself on the front of Heat magazine with the headline, ‘How much do you hate this woman?’. I knew it would turn out allright in the end, so I just put my head down, but it was tough, you don’t want your family to have to read those kind of things about you.” Claire still talks at 100mph and is an unapologetic promoter of her various ventures, whether it be School Speakers or the Girls Out Loud enterprise scheme, every so often dropping the names of Dragon Den’s Peter Jones and PM David Cameron

She turned down the offer of a job with Karren Brady to set up on her own and, having moved back to Wakefield, she has used the profile she earned on the show to build her business.

“At one point I had 500 job offers, but I just asked myself where I wanted to be in five years. The answer was running my own company. I do a lot of work promoting enterprise in schools. When I ask the girls what they want to do, many of them say ‘marry a rich man’ or ‘have a boob job’. It’s depressing really.

“If I’d have taken some of the offers I had after the show I could probably be earning more money than I do know, but I’m my own boss and that’s worth more than any monthly pay cheque.”

While some no doubt live to rue an ill-advised foray into television, Emma Milne, familiar to viewers of Vets In Practice, which began life in 1996, has no such regrets, even though it meant her divorce from fellow vet Joe Inglis made the papers.

“The series made an enormous difference to my life,” says Emma, who later moved to a veterinary practice in York.

“I was asked on to Question Time and have been lucky enough to have a peek at how the other half live. People I have never met feel like they know me. That still feels strange, but in my line of work it has also helped to break down the barriers with new clients. People say they trust me and that means a lot.”

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