WE'VE known forever that North Yorkshire is a great place to be.

Quite apart from it being England's biggest county, it is full of warmhearted, often quirky, Yorkshire folk.

Dales, vales, moors and coast - whether it's the brash resorts or the quaint fishing villages - market towns and, of course, the ruby in the tiara, beautiful York. North Yorkshire has it all.

The list is endless: York Minster, the Lyke Wake Walk. Castle Howard, Heartbeat, Herriot and Captain Cook 'countries'.

Our county is a treasure house of heritage and beauty. And it has remained one of Britain's best kept secrets until now. The splendours of North Yorkshire are travelling south to prove to outsiders how great is the county.

Come July, visitors to the Royal Show in Warwickshire will be tempted north by a showcase of the county's main attractions.

The North York Moors, Yorkshire Dales, historic York, coastal resorts and hundreds of years of tradition will be crammed into no less than five themed marquees, with entertainment and demonstrations.

It cannot do the county justice. Only seeing is believing. Visitors have to sample the real thing to be enchanted.

If we were really selfish we could relish the fact that being north of Watford we do not exist in the eyes of millions of southerners. Why should we share our good fortune with that lot? Do we really want hundreds of thousands more feet trampling our national parks and tramping our pavements?

The answer has to be 'yes'. Tourism is one of the county's biggest employers and for the sake of future prosperity we must, albeit carefully, capitalise on our natural resources.

And what's the point of owning a masterpiece if we cannot show it off to anyone?

We are Proud to be York. It follows that we are Proud to be North Yorkshire.

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