CRAVEN born BBC political correspondent Chris Mason will talk to old friends about growing up in the Dales in a new documentary going out on Radio 4 on Friday (March 1).

The Country vs the City is based on his own experiences of growing up in Grassington, and explores how urbanites perceive those who live in the countryside.

In the documentary, the former Ermysted’s Grammar School pupil who went on to Cambridge University before becoming a journalist and is now Westminster based, talks to David Mitchell, son of WR ‘Bill’ Mitchell, long time editor of The Dalesman, whose blue commemorative plaque he unveiled at the end of last year in Skipton.

He also talks to Jamie Roberts, of Kilnsey Park, and Hebden farmers, Janet and Alan Stockdale, and to Skipton’s ‘Mr Sport’, Roger Ingham.

“I base it on my own experience of growing up in the Yorkshire Dales and now living in London. It features David Mitchell, Bill Mitchell’s son, reflecting on Bill’s Dales journalism, at the unveiling of the plaque to him at Parish Church School in Skipton in December.

“Also in there is Jamie Roberts, the fourth generation of his family to live and work at Kilnsey Park. Jamie was brought up in the Dales, went away to London and even to St Helena, and then came back.”

The Country vs The City will go out on BBC Radio 4 at at 11am on Friday , and afterwards on BBC Sounds.