The hills are alive with talented people making all sorts of arts, crafts and tasty goodies. And a lot of them line the shelves at The Fat Sheep giftshop, where the only proviso is that goods must be made in the Yorkshire Dales.

WHILE we are browsing the shelves of The Fat Sheep a couple of their deliveries arrive. Not for them a huge wagon backing up with a warning horn beeping and an impatient driver with a wodge of dockets to be checked. No.

Dorothy Lewis from just down the road at Grinton pops in with a few more copies of her book, a chap drops off a couple of the splendid walking sticks he makes as a hobby and a knitter on her way over the dale delivers a hat and a few scarves - "I know it's coming up summer, but I was passing."

When David and Judy Goff say their business uses local suppliers, they mean really local. Everything in The Fat Sheep is made in the Yorkshire Dales, much of it within a few miles of Reeth, where the shop sits on the side of The Green, in the former Literary Institute.

So there are wooden bowls made in Marske, each one with a label telling you where the tree came from, pottery from Ingleton, paintings from Richmond, herbs from Newby Wiske, jams and preserves, including the famous banana chutney, from Leyburn, jewellery from Bedale, beer from Harrogate, candles from Wensley, handmade soaps from West Tanfield, miniature dry stone walls made by a man who makes the real thing too, angel chocolates made just the other side of the green... and much, much more.

"All we ask is that everything is of top quality and made in the Yorkshire Dales," says Judy.

She and David were teachers in Manchester for 15 years, but regular visitors to the Dales.

"We enjoyed teaching but always wanted to run our own business and wanted to live up here. So when we saw these premises available, they seemed perfect and the two things just came together. As well as living here we feel we are contributing to the community and becoming part of Dales life," she says.

They now live just up the road in Arkengarthedale, with a three-mile tootle down the dale to work, "a bit different from the Manchester commute".

They were partly inspired by Rick Stein and his emphasis on thinking local for food. "We knew the Dales were crammed full of crafts people, but it wasn't always easy to know where you could buy their work. Yes, there are more farm shops and delis now, selling locally produced food, but that still leaves all the other stuff," says Judy.

"We thought we'd like to sell the sort of things we wanted to buy when we were visitors. A lot of our producers make things on a very small scale indeed, often just as a hobby. That's fine by us. We'll just take what they make, when they make it. It makes the shop interesting and unusual and different from everywhere else. We get very fed up when you go to places and you see all the same things, mass produced miles away, even other countries, just with a local label stuck on. We didn't want that."

It also explains the hand knitted octopus in Reeth Football Club's away-colours.

"We had one in the home strip too, but we've sold it," says David.

And there are even some patchwork church mice. "We know they're church mice, because they're made by the vicar, Caroline Hewlitt."

Just to prove the shop is ecumenical, all profits from the knitted toys and socks by Beth of Reeth go to the Methodist Chapel.

The premises used to be home to the Yorkshire Dales office - now moved to the top of The Green - and before that it had been the doctor's surgery. "We get a lot of people who come in and say they remember sitting here, waiting to see the doctor," says Judy.

They opened the shop in May last year, did well not just in the tourist season but also in the run-up to Christmas. "That was good because we felt we were providing a real service for locals as well."

Not only do they sell stuff, they also make some of their stock as well. For many years John Duxbury made Glendale Ginger cordial - traditional, non-alcoholic, but goes down a treat with whisky - from a recipe that had been handed down through his wife's family for over 300 years. Its fans says it does everything from aid the digestion, sort out morning sickness to stimulate the brain and other bits. Now David and Judy make it and supply other shops as well, so the recipe lives on.

The reason for the shop's name, The Fat Sheep, goes back to the days when David and Judy were in a Dales pub looking at an auction mart sign for inspiration for their quiz team name. Back then they were ignorant young townies. Now they and their shop are firmly established as part of the dales.

n The Fat Sheep, The Green, Reeth. www.fatsheep.co.uk. This time of year, open seven days a week, from 10.30am-ish to 5.30pm-ish. Tel: 01748-880189.

If you are producing something with love and care in the Yorkshire Dales (has to be Yorkshire, sorry) and would like to sell it in The Fat Sheep, then David and Judy would love to hear from you.