IT'S hats off to Beryl Otley's North Yorkshire venture, Get Ahead Hats, which has spread its tentacles throughout the UK.

Beryl, 64, is celebrating 21 years since she started the farmers' wives' co-operative, which now has 22 showrooms on farms from Devon in the South to Carlisle in the North.

She will mark the occasion with a party at her Get Ahead Hats base, off the A59 at Dutton Farm, near Nether Poppleton, on Sunday, May 14, but women guests will not be expected to don headgear.

"That would be a bit like a busman's holiday. We talk about nothing but hats and that talk has grown more intense since the months preceding Ascot at York."

Among the guests will be Vale of York MP Anne McIntosh and officials from DEFRA.

Beryl said: "I was a farmer's wife with spare buildings and spare time as family left home and so I started making hats. Today the group markets 4,500 hats at any one time and has its own designers."

Beryl is particularly proud of the work her organisation has done for charity, raising £5,000 a year.

Updated: 09:46 Thursday, April 27, 2006