BEFORE I could park the car, I had to wait for a fat mallard drake to waddle out of the way. The trout were feeding in the beck below the ancient hump-backed bridge.

Up the hill, a man was trying to shepherd two frisky young lambs off the road and back through a stile, a task calling for patience and a sense of humour. And a spring sun poked through the early mist to paint the village gold.

This was a picture postcard morning in the Yorkshire Dales, a scene that brings the visitors pouring in by bus and car, bike and boot. It was almost too good to be true, bordering on the unreal.

But the couple I had come to see are as real as the limestone cliffs of Malhamdale: Harry Bolland, MBE, and bubbly, busy Betty Bolland, man and wife these past 50 years and as much part of the Dales as the fells and the river that runs past the front of their house.

Harry, the farmers' friend, made his living in these parts for more than half a century, first working on the land, then selling cattle food, proven, to scores of regular customers from the upper reaches of Wharfedale and across into East Lancashire.

Betty, also a farming lass, hails from Addingham so, as she says with her infectious laugh, "I'm an offcumden in Malham really....I've only been here since 1948."

Not so Harry. They still sleep in the bedroom in which he was born 81 years ago but, as he is quick to point out, "not in the same bed."

Their house, Coronation Villa, was built in 1900 and is named for the coronation of King Edward VII. It stands just across the river and their flower-filled garden on the bank graces a million-and-one photo albums throughout the world in tourists' snapshots that would grace a chocolate box.

It sounds like a fairy tale. But like the ancient bridge in Malham, designed for horse-and-cart and shored up now by ugly struts so that it can withstand the poundings of modern traffic, it was not without its strains, nor even its tragedies.

Harry was but a toddler when his mother was died in the disastrous 'flu epidemic of 1919. The same disease killed his mother's sister and her sister-in-law. So Harry was taken in and brought up by his grandparents.

As a young farm worker in the days when farming demanded more muscle than brain, he was discovered to have a heart problem and his doctor advised him to find another job. But in those days, such jobs were hard to come by in the Dales.

"I nearly went to at Johnson & Johnson in Gargrave," he recalls, "but the thought of being indoors all day horrified me. Then I remembered there was an old cattle food salesman who took a cottage in Malham for one week every month so that he could do his rounds in the Dales.

"I was a cheeky sort of fella, so I went up to him and said, 'Any chance of a job like yours?' I was signed on a couple of days later."

That cheek, plus the gift that the Irish call 'a touch of the Blarney,' stood Harry in good stead for the next 40 years or so as he toured his beloved Dales selling provender and passing the time of day with farmer customers who became lifelong friends.

When he retired as Preston Farmers area manager based at Gisburn, they asked him if he would continue to serve some regular clients: "the computer age had come, d'ya see, but they wanted someone who could speak the same language as the customers."

He did that for many more years but even now that he is fully retired - from business at least - he still does the rounds of his old farming mates, calling in for chat or meeting them over a cup of tea most Mondays at Skipton Auction Mart.

"It's difficult to tell that he's retired," says Betty with a good humoured shrug. "He's out and about as much now as he ever was."

That, of course, is when there is no pressing Malham community business to tend. Harry has been a church warden for 33 years, both have been on the committee of the Malhamdale Show for longer than they can remember, and both are on the village hall committee; as village hall secretary, Betty spends hours juggling bookings for the hall is in great demand.

It was this community work that won Harry his MBE in a gesture which shows that, some times at least, the Honours System really does work.

They have a son and a daughter, Robin and Shirley, both married and both still living - of course - in Malham, which means they get to see a lot of their four grandchildren.

And when there is a minute to spare, they chat and offer the odd cup of tea to the tourists who linger to admire their immaculate beck-side garden.

"There's still a lot for us to do, young fella," says Harry. "But would you do me one favour: would you give our thanks to all our farming friends and our neighbours: they're the ones who have given us such a wonderful life..."

As I said earlier, a fairy tale. Except this one's true!

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.