Yarm School's Christmas Fair was held on Saturday. I didn't go, but remembered what I wrote last year.

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If you are apprehensive about a Christmas craft fair and even more at a school then your fears would have been allayed when you attended Yarm School’s, held in November.

The Yarm School Association, formed by parents and friends of the school, host several craft fairs a year at the school. Their banner for the Christmas fair promised a visit from Santa Claus and activities for children. Mrs Padbury, one of the organisers, said this was to ensure a good attendance at the fair. They certainly achieved this aim, running an ‘animal corner’ and a separate children’s activity centre. Without those having their faces painted or riding on a model train in the entrance area you would not have known children were there at all.

To enter the fair area you had to pass through the well stocked canteen, doubling as a café for the day. The large tables seemed to be full no matter what time you passed through with peopling chatting, discussing what they had seen and showing off the things they had bought, while enjoying light refreshments, tea or coffee; even in mid afternoon there were still those making the most of hot pies and salads which looked like a recipe for spoiling your appetite for an evening meal.

The stalls were arranged around the walls, with more stalls in a square in the centre. Amazingly with so many people there, amid the hubbub of excited conversations with stall holders, there was plenty of room to move around. Most toured the stalls by moving clockwise, generally round the outside first with a second circuit round the middle. On the third or fourth round the routes were more haphazard. It was then that goods were being bought. What a lot there was to choose from!

Of course there were Christmas items, from traditional cards, decorations of glass, felt and patchwork to food and non-alcoholic drinks, wreaths and indoor multicoloured chilli and cyclamen plants. There were even oven-ready turkeys on farm shop stalls. The gifts from Eaglescliffe’s Skyblue Crafts were comparatively inexpensive while the fine art prints on show at Prints for Arts Sake would set you back over a hundred pounds.

Stall holders were all friendly and pleased to explain their crafts of woodturning, painting, photography, pottery and the like. Many had their bases in the area close to Yarm but some came from wider afield in County Durham and from Commondale on the North Yorkshire moors near Whitby. Despite having Mallaig on the box containing a selection of tulip bulbs, the lady selling them and Christmas wreaths, continually had to assure questioners that she was local and not from the west coast of Scotland – she just liked the look of the weather beaten box. However the goods that had travelled furthest were the brightly coloured and patterned silks made in Pakistan by the family of the stall holder’s husband; these needed unfolding completely to appreciate their splendour.

Nigel Coates, the Great Ayton woodturner, had a wide range of bowls, lamps, platters and mushrooms in oak, beech, mahogany and a variety of other woods. His bowls marked ‘For begging or for giving’ caught the eye, as did his slogan that ‘Old woodturners never die. They just turn in their graves’.

Younger generations of craftswomen were well represented. The owner of Skyblue Crafts was at her first trade fair. Jen Mathee, a trained silversmith was showing a range of her handmade sterling silver jewellery at her Jing stall; in common with many exhibitors she has a web site on which more examples of her work may be seen, commissioned and bought on line. Zoe Smiths Fairytale Art, in addition to bespoke Christmas cards had delightful original drawings of children interpreted into characters such as fairies, pirates, witches and the like. Her very young assistant was eager to point out which were her favourites; however she was quite sure that ‘she’ was not for sale.

Eaglescliffe’s Thorncroft Limited encouraged you to taste their healthy line of drinks; not many could resist trying elder flower, rosehip and even nettle cordial. Just Williams Hedgerow Projects stocked jams, jellies and chutneys and as the name suggests the basis for these are readily available wild fruits.

This was a successful fair, especially for those who bought sticky toffee pudding at the Burtree House Farm stall; if you were lucky enough to win the raffle prize of a £50 voucher for meat from the Maltby Farm Shop, well that is better than icing on the cake.

[PS: I won the £50 voucher. When the organiser rang to let me know,my wife answered the phone. Thinking someone was trying to sell us something she gaily announced, "We have the Telephone Preference Service - you should not be calling us." Fortunately I realised what was happening in time to rescue the call. Now we use the Farm Shop all the time.]