Published at 16:42, Thursday, 06 December 2012

BARROW’S culinary king Dave Myers will be rubbing shoulders with lucky local diners at next year’s One Week Only food festival.

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The Hairy Biker has taken the extraordinary step of re-arranging his busy filming schedule to make himself available for the charity event in Dalton.

Confirmation of Mr Myers’ attendance on the opening night comes as just 120 tickets of the 500 issued for the five-day gastronomic gala remain unsold.

Organiser Dan Austin of Lake District Farmers said he was astonished at the lengths Mr Myers had gone to in order to show his support.

“Originally we emailed Dave through a third party and he was unavailable because he’s obviously a very busy man,” he said.

“But his wife, Lili, rang up on Friday and said that Dave had spoken to his agent and asked them to move his filming around so he could be at the event.”

Lake District Farmers, which is organising the event to raise money for the charity trusts of investor Ray Armstrong – who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer – had always hoped Mr Myers would be involved.

“I think it’s incredible that Dave’s done that because, to me, he is the ideal person to open the event,” Mr Austin said.

“Dave’s going to be welcoming people as they come in and he’ll be doing the auction on the Friday night, so he’s going to be really involved.”

An unprecedented line-up of internationally-recognised chefs will cook at Dalton’s Clarence House Hotel between February 1 and 5, including Simon Rogan, Angela Hartnett, Luke Rayment and Andy Cook.

Mr Austin said he had been stunned by the reaction to the once-in-a-lifetime event since news of it broke in the Evening Mail last week.

“We’re very, very confident at this stage of being sold out,” he said. “The wonderful thing is that we’ve had a fantastic response from the people of Barrow.

“The Barrovian people have committed their time and their money to it and the support we’ve had has been just amazing.

“We’ve even had people ringing up just asking if they can help in some way because they’ve been inspired by what we’re going to do for local charities.”

To book tickets, priced at £100, call Sarah Earley on 01229 870168.

Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk