00:00My name is Ted Newton and I'm Head of Marketing and Communications here at
00:03Pharmacopolis. When I first came over to Pontefract I'd always heard about
00:08Pharmacopolis Pumpkin Festival as a big event in the area and and that was ten
00:13years ago now so once I joined it was easy to see that it was such a
00:17loved event in the area and it's gone from strength to strength. The original
00:20idea was when owner Rob Copley went over to America just to see what was
00:25going on with the sort of entertainment in the agriculture industry over there
00:29and obviously Americans do pumpkins big and celebrate Halloween a bit more
00:34than than we do over in England maybe not anymore but but back then it
00:37certainly was something that the British market wasn't really thriving in so Rob
00:42brought some ideas back in 2005 launched it in 2006 started down in the in the
00:50cafe itself and in the original farm shop with with Heather just selling a few
00:54pumpkins dressed as a witch doing toffee apples and it's gone from from that
00:59small area to 300,000 pumpkins obviously we had a very very hot summer and it did
01:05affect a couple of varieties but they did catch they grew so it was that was the
01:10main thing that we wanted them to do we can't irrigate the pumpkin obviously this
01:15fields massive to irrigate obviously with water shortages and things like that it
01:19was it was a bit of a oh are we gonna be all right this year but the the rain
01:24that's come through over the past couple of months after the the sort of really
01:28sunny summer is really compensated and and they've obviously as you can see we've
01:31got some pretty pretty big boys out there as well so they've they've done
01:35their job they're they're a tropical fruit so they they do like the water so
01:40they will sort of absorb that as and when it appears we have over 60 different
01:44varieties and you can go and count them if you want but now a few of our
01:49favorites so we've got the white ones which are called polar bear we really love
01:53them they're really good for carving as an alternative to your orange and we
01:59really like to go down there the eating route with pumpkins as well so there's a
02:02bluish pumpkin that's called crown prince and that is it's really beautiful
02:06pumpkin it's quite a nutty texture and a taste inside so we do recommend that we
02:11use that down down in our sort of recipes in the cafe and things like that
02:14got lots of music nights throughout the the rest of the month we've got the
02:18sheep show that comes it's a really educational fun show with Trevor and it is
02:22different varieties of sheep we've got the storytelling going on with the witch
02:26we've got just loads of things happening the fancy dress on the stage
02:29over there the characters come out the pumpkin princess fell crow the scarecrow
02:33there's archery paint boiling loads of street food with a big wheel it's a time
02:38of year you get out into the outdoors it's it's great for people's mental
02:41health it's great for just taking in some fresh air it and just spending time
02:46with with your loved ones and it's it's it's getting that unit to come out and
02:51it's amazing just standing near the entrance and watching the families I'm
02:55ten years deep into this now and every year it still takes my breath away when
02:59we say it
