David Parkin on Willy Wonka, being an ambassador and Kylie in Filey

Even the big corporate events have a few less tables in the room and have perhaps compromised on speakers, choosing the C-listers instead of the top liners in a bid to balance the budget.

The annual Firecracker Ball at Rudding Park in Harrogate bucks that trend. It gets an attendance of up to 800 people and prides itself on attempting to improve on the year before.

This year was no exception. The ball, which raises money for children’s charity Barnados, had a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory theme.

And the imagination of those behind it knows no bounds. From exotically dressed girls handing out candy canes to brightly coloured trees emerging from the centre of tables, the marquee at Rudding brought oohs and aahs from the upper crust guests.

They crossed a bridge over a chocolate stream to get to their tables and compere Jon Hammond cut a dash dressed as Willy Wonka.

“I suppose it’s too politically incorrect to have Oompah Loompahs here,” I commented to fellow guests as we reached our table.

That was just as a small orange bloke in white dungarees with green hair walked past.

Jon, who regularly provides witty comments at the bottom of this column, insisted he and I were photographed with two of Willy’s little helpers.

My host, Elaine Holmes, managing director of successful Yorkshire travel business Traveleads, has been on the Firecracker committee for many years and observed how things have changed since the early days when they used to have a game spinning coins on the dance floor as part of the fundraising.

Now they auction off luxury experiences such as a week for two on Richard Branson’s Necker Island in the Caribbean. That fetched about £18,000 if I remember rightly.

Phil Taylor, of construction group Oakapple, chairs the Firecracker committee and is a man whose approach is about spending a serious amount on the event to ensure it raises a serious amount.

And it is a serious amount: last Saturday’s bash brought in about £200,000 for the excellent work done by Barnados.

Phil was resplendent in a purple velvet jacket and flamboyant floppy gold bowtie. I was also wearing a midnight blue velvet jacket (provided by Simon Berwin of Yorkshire tailoring firm Berwin & Berwin for a fashion show I compered earlier this year) and I thought Phil and I might spark each other into self-combustion as he squeezed past me.

As I spotted a number of other male guests in velvet, including Darren Forshaw of Endless, I realised that perhaps it didn’t represent the cutting edge of fashion as I had thought.

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THIS has been UK Trade & Investment’s annual Export Week and there have been events across the region aimed at encouraging Yorkshire firms to go out and trade internationally.

I was fortunate enough to host an evening seminar at the Cedar Court Hotel in Harrogate this week which was specifically aimed at encouraging medium sized businesses from the region to export.

When you look at the success stories of firms like York’s Pavers Shoes, which has increased its number of stores in India from 35 to 100 since working with UKTI, you realised no firm, whatever its size, can afford to ignore the opportunities provided by international markets.

Mark Robson, regional director of UKTI, is a man who always has interesting stories about trading abroad. He once told me the most unusual product he’d ever seen exported was hammocks for ferrets.

He came into the seminar with a large plastic tub of chocolate covered raisins which a Yorkshire firm is successfully selling to China.

During the event we heard from Kingspan, the insulation business which already had operations in 38 countries when it started working with UKTI to break into the African market.

Business development director Tom Paul told the audience that UKTI’s help had given the company the clout to engage with key targets in new markets.

He said that it had been able to hold receptions hosted by British ambassadors abroad at their impressive embassies.

During the discussion, which also featured James Stretton of JC Rathbone Associates and John Huddleston of the CBI, a coach load of UKTI advisors from embassies across the world arrived straight from another event in Newcastle.

They slipped in quietly at the back of the room and so had missed the introductions of all the speakers.

I closed the event by observing that if businesses went to UKTI events abroad they would be hosted by British ambassadors, whereas if they came to an event in this country they just got me as the host.

After some sporadic tittering, the audience started networking with a zeal that was impressive.

One lady came up to me and said: “So are you the Ambassador of Harrogate then?”

I laughed and asked what she did and she told me she is Cuban and works at the British Embassy in Havana.

“So you’re our woman in Havana?” I replied, dragging up a school days memory of reading Graham Greene. 

I think she’d heard that line before.

Then two other representatives from India came up and I think clearly thought I was a real ambassador, asking me for introductions to Yorkshire firms in specific sectors.

And just like a real ambassador might, I was welcoming, charming and then introduced them to someone that could help them.

Now where is that Foreign Office application form?

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JUST before Autumn arrived last week I decided to take my dog for a trip to the coast. Having not been to Filey for years, I pitched up in this pretty, unspoilt resort and enjoy a walk along the beach that wasn’t so much bracing as balmy.

It brought back a memory from my time as a graduate when I did a couple of weeks of work experience at the Yorkshire Evening Post.

At the time, I, like every student, read adult comic Viz with a passion that we should have reserved for The Economist.

Viz made up bizarre but entertaining stories which it pretended were true including one at the time about Kylie Minogue looking forward to a holiday in a caravan at Filey under the headline: Kylie goes to Filey.

With a little encouragement from a seasoned hack with a glint in his eye in the YEP newsroom, I decided to ring up the Mayor of Filey to ask him about the story.

He was a good egg who played along and said Kylie was welcome to visit the resort at any time of her choosing and she could also stay at his caravan park.

Needless to say the YEP news desk rejected this story out of hand but my older mentor put me in touch with a Northern-based reporter from The Sun who paid me a £20 tip-off fee and ran it as one of their down page snippets.

My journalism career has gone downhill ever since.

Have a great weekend.