TIME was when a chunk of cheese and a hunk of bread was the staple diet of most country folk. The roast beef of Olde Englande went to the nobs in the Big House.

Apart from the odd piece of pork from the single pig many farm labourers kept in their back gardens, and an egg or two from a few chickens, it was cheese that, quite literally, built the backbone of Britain.

Although I cannot prove this conclusively - the history of Skipton market is literally lost in the mists of time - there would have been cheese mongers hawking their wares in the shadow of the castle 900 years ago.

That was 400 years or so before America was discovered.

So it may come as a surprise that, about six months ago, a big order for Yorkshire cheeses arrived in Skipton from Cincinnati, Ohio, US of A.

Hi-tech had come to Skipton market. The internet had arrived and an enterprising family of local cheese mongers could now sell their produce to the world.

Literature is full of family sagas about young sons moving into the family business full of new ideas and technology, often resisted by a conservative and cautious father.

But not so in the Family Lawson, purveyors of fine cheeses to Craven and the world. Mum and dad, Malcolm and Hazel, came to Skipton some 20 years ago as butchers when they took over the now long gone Craven Farmers shop next to Woolworth's.

They stayed at the butchering business in various premises, including a market stall, but began to build up a profitable sideline in cheese.

When Malcolm, now 58, decided he felt like going into semi-retirement, he quit the meat trade and was supposed to help Hazel concentrate on the two cheese stalls she was now running on the market.

But they had reckoned without son Darren, now 29, who thought there could be more to business life than standing in all weathers on a windy High Street.

He had, you see, bought himself a computer and he began to play with it.

"We had built up something of a mail order business, mainly from tourists who came to the town, bought from us, and wanted more after they had gone home," says Darren, who lives in Broughton Road, Skipton.

"I was fascinated by the possibilities of the internet but trying to teach myself proved something of a nightmare. So off I went to Craven College and did a basic computer course. Then, I thought, we were ready."

So, a year ago, into the world of the web came www.cheesesdirect.com, offering between 150 and 200 cheeses - mainly Yorkshire produced - to connoisseurs with PCs anywhere in the globe.

And nothing happened...

"For six months, there was nothing - zilch," said Darren over a pint in Skipton's Red Lion after a hard day's trading. "It was getting to be a bit disheartening. Then, one day, I switched on the computer and there it was: a big order, mainly for Wensleydale varieties, from Cincinnati, Ohio. And it has never stopped since."

His mum and dad chuckled: this is a family with a hearty sense of humour, fond of joshing each other. Malcolm and Hazel tried to disguise their pleasure - and pride - at this major breakthrough behind a joke. But they failed.

Since then, orders have flooded in from America, Europe, Russia and negotiations are under way with Australia. Even the French have ordered cheeses from Skipton market and, as the French are the world's supreme cheese snobs, that is a mega achievement.

"We got one prospective order from Russia for tons of cheese pallets," said Malcolm. "We had to turn that down - we cannot go into business on that scale without taking on a lot more staff. That might happen soon - but not before we have thought about it very deeply."

As it is, the Family Lawson have acquired a big new cold storage unit (not, I must point out a freezer - they only deal in fresh cheeses) and some highly complex packaging equipment which is so hi-tech that it is beyond my limited grasp of such matters.

Basically, however, they pack their produce surrounded by a frozen gel which will keep the cheese in tip-top condition for at least three days and the average time for delivery via Parcel Force is 48 hours, even to America.

So how does dad feel about his enterprising son? In the books and films of family sagas, he is supposed to be threatened, left out of it.

"Not at all," he says. "The more Darren does, the less I have to work. He is making me learn the computer, though, and I won't pretend that I find that easy. He's a hard task-master."

We all laugh. Hazel, in particular, seems to take pleasure from this joshing between the two men in her life.

A nice family this, as I know from personal experience. One Saturday, I bought one of their speciality cheeses - Wensleydale with blueberries, I think it was - and left it on the stall. The next week, they recognised me and gave me another piece - "we like to get to know our customers and remember them," says Hazel.

There is something deeply satisfying about this. There were no doubt people like the Lawsons selling cheese on Skipton market when we were sending crusaders to the Holy Land, a journey that could take years.

Now the crusades are commercial and led by technology that travels at the speed of light.

Other Craven businesses take note!