A note from Mark Darley - Nova Scotia Farm Produce



This document is intended to be a thank you to all those that were a part of the Thorner Feed the Need (FtN) response to Covid-19.

On Tuesday 24th March 2020 the nation went into lockdown. 2 days later the newly formed Feed the Need team delivered the first batch of 17 meals to the elderly, vulnerable and those simply unable to get out of their homes. 14 weeks later 1,349 resident meals had been served and delivered to Thorner residents.

I had worked with Mark Pickering before and knew that he had the culinary knowledge, experience and due to event cancelations, we both unexpectedly had the time to be able to pull it all together. Commenting “we just need to do what we have to” and that the project had his full support.

Thorner Victory Hall - the centre of FtN

A heartfelt thank you to the Thorner Victory Hall Committee and in particular to Peter Schofield (Chair) for immediately recognising the value to the community of what FtN was offering to do. Initially offering the use of just the kitchen, then with their continued support and cooperation, to enable increased volume and adherence to social distancing, we spread out into the bar, lobby and small hall areas.

As soon as it was announced we would be running the kitchen, within the hour I had numerous volunteers pledging their assistance.

The team was assembled, on a first come basis. At this point we had no idea what the pandemic was likely to throw at our entire community or the country, so the team was kept as small as possible to avoid any potential virus spread and subsequent isolation issues. I worked from the list of chronological volunteers as we required more help. It transpired all the volunteers were absolutely fantastic, without exception.

The Feed the Need Kitchen and GrillMarks

This escalated into almost a full-time job, the following have all contributed way beyond the call of duty. I do know from the wonderful thank you notes we received from our diners, that our combined efforts have been truly appreciated.

Mark Pickering’s contribution can not be overstated, many hours dedicated to Feed the Need producing the best meals we possibly could. Together we took our diners on a tour of the worlds cuisines usually with a grounding Yorkshire twist! However some creations were just exclusively from the Victory Hall kitchen as we utilised the bounty of ingredients bestowed upon us. The food we served would not have been nearly as flavoursome, inventive but also measured and varied without Mark sharing the head chef gauntlet.

Mark was also responsible for the barbecued dishes which progressed in to starting our own GrillMarks Saturday nights; fantastic food created in quite often challenging weather, hard work and appreciated by all that tried the BBQ food.

Steph Petch first joined us as our kitchen porter, but as the services grew Steph quickly became an essential part of the kitchen staff, prepping, cooking, baking various dishes under chef’s direction. Steph also became our chip frying “queen” which included all the preparation then double frying consistently to perfection, under a continuous pressure of a high volume service. Not many can manage to sustain this, for the periods Steph did. Always bang on time for the start of work, fantastic effort Steph really grateful you joined us you were Brill!

The Delivery Dream Team

Tracy, Andrew and Cameron Morton, were brilliant, there for deliveries every service. A special thanks to Tracy for providing end of service presents for the team via a very kind and specific donation from Janet Green.



Gary and Nikki Johnson Gary volunteered to help out delivering the meals despite having only been living in Thorner for a short period prior to lockdown. It was a pleasure to get to know these guys and they can certainly navigate around the village now. Thanks for your assistance both, an awesome thing to do as intro to village life.

Rob Staines and Thea Dogson-Staines. Thea was really popular with the customers often lingering for a little chat with the elders when delivering their meals. She made a fantastic end of service cake too! Rob always seemed to drop for the long delivery runs. Rob was juggling many balls, not only running his own sport clothing print business, fundraising an amazing £25k plus for the NHS, he somehow also managed to find time to help us too. He was also instrumental in securing funding to help FtN via a JustGiving site and contacting the Parish Council. Great stuff Rob and Thea, thank you!

Gillian Hall and Elizabeth joined the delivery team bringing much enthusiasm and fun to the sessions with beautiful smiles for the diners too. A lovely mother and daughter team and a pleasure to have you on board, thank you girls, great job !

Emma Waterland was heavily involved with this project helping out with deliveries, submitting on-line orders, Producing the wind down of FtN leaflets, great apple peeling, and even dancing skills! Not to mention when her daughter, Hattie was expecting to go back to school, Emma was the trainee replacement, poised like a coiled spring.

Brilliant commitment Emma, thanks for everything.

The behind the scenes team

William Darley - designed and built the ordering website we used and had a continuous challenge of updating the daily menus. He was working on a FtN website before I even knew we needed one!

Lily Pickering created our Feed the Need door poster.

On-line orders team 

I quickly realised in the first full week that actually taking the daily orders was an extremely time consuming activity. Not all our high riskers were on-line or had the inclination to be so, but ordering online was the most effective way for the kitchen to deal with the orders.

Sarah Worrel offered to help, I think at the time neither of us knew what the undertaking was! This aspect of taking the orders over the phone or by a safe distanced visit, then placing them on line on behalf of the diner, transpired to be an epic responsibility. Four food services per week for fourteen weeks.

Lucy Taylor and Emma Waterland also joined this activity and were greatly appreciated.

Our system was totally reliant on the dedication of these ‘technophobe angels’. Taking the orders did not just entail “what would you like for lunch?”. The little chat with our often totally isolated residents was more a pastoral role. l think it was sometimes as important as the actual food. Sarah, Lucy and Emma were superb and an absolutely crucial element of Feed the Need, thank you so much on behalf of the whole team. You made our elders feel and know they were being looked after. You were our front of house and a fantastic one at that!



Katie Coppock helped orchestrate expanding the high risk resident list, Thanks!

Food procurement and donations

As you will all know during full lockdown shopping was very time consuming with distancing rules in place and queues.

John and Catherine Wilson supported FtN very generously. Not only did they carry out many of the weekly food shopping trips for sometimes very specific ingredients, often donating some of the items to the cause too.

They regularly sneaked in to give the floors and any pans left to soak a proper anti Covid extra clean! Unseen heroes of the operation. Many special thanks!

Jason and Debra Falk greatly assisted with regular ‘short-dated food’ donations that they collected from M&S and Aldi. Some of what we received resulted in “invention tests” to make best use of the ingredients, which certainly helped keep our menus varied. Quite often we were able to add a goodie bag to the meals that our diners received. From the provisions Jason provided. Absolute sterling work, a massive effort, all unseen to most.

Tracy, Andrew and Cameron Morton Rooney supplied veg to cook and fruit for goodie bags on a regular basis. They also packed hundreds of the actual goodie bags which were always well received.

LNER via Sara Borland very kindly donated a never ending mountain of flapjacks, fruitcake, shortbread and orange juice, this kept our goodie bags brimming for a couple of weeks.

The Post Box Deli provided ingredients on several occasions for the meals. Thankyou very much Rachel Bielby.

The Fox Inn donated and delivered potatoes and other vegetables, thank you Tracey & Richard Clements

Emma Waterland for apple peeling (homework) and stewing services (a mountain of them) it saved our kitchen much effort. Thanks!

Charlie & Judy Hammond provided wonderful home baking, minced beef and pork loin joints. Thank you, the pork in particular was superb!

Carol and Don Orton  provided some home baked brownies for the VE day goodie bags. Delicious, I was enthusiastically informed…as nothing remained for the chefs to try!

Others very kindly donated all manner of ingredients. From pasta (when it was like gold dust), superb sprouting broccoli, spuds, dozens of eggs, boxes of apples, carrots and onions. Thank you all for helping us feed the need.

Chris Lord, Diane Eshelby, Hilary Marsden, Patrica Wood, Pete and Sue Schofield, The egg lady, Caroline Hullah , Rachel Williams, and Claire

Nova Scotia Farm Produce Insured, created risk assessments, Haccp documents,  configured the menus, allergen declarations, temperature records and bank rolled the whole project. Supplied complimentary meat, ingredients and prize winning pies throughout the campaign.

Individual Fundraising & Supporting Stars

Tom Kitchingman

Did a sponsored cycle ride to Thorner School and back home in Alwoodley, every day for a week (accompanied by his dad) in all weathers to donate to FtN. A great example to his peers and a magnificent fund raising achievement. Gary, our delivery driver commented “a young man that deserves so much credit. Rare that we celebrate our kids these days but we should, and this boy is a superstar!” enough said other than thank you Tom ! .. from the FtN team and all the diners that enjoyed the “Tom’s Choice” Meal, we hope you did too. It was a great idea and a really nice thing to do for your community. Well done the Kitchingmans.

Rob Staines of Stag Sportswear

Being involved with our deliveries Rob was aware of our ‘no corners cut’ policy, the quality of the ingredients and actual costs being incurred by myself. So he kindly set up a fundraising JustGiving page to raise funds to contribute to this community initiative and help spread the burden. Thank you Rob for making the effort and your unstinting support in the whole project. Many thanks also to everyone that contributed to Rob’s campaign

Chris Ibbotson of Mr Mechanic

Not only did Chris donate his breakdown fee after recovering a stranded resident, he also very kindly auctioned off his excellent car servicing skills, the proceeds of which he donated to FtN. What a great and imaginative idea to raise funds.

George & Bella Coppock

Created some wonderfully inspired lockdown photography with their “Not all heroes wear capes” project in which, look carefully, you will spot the FtN chefs posing! “No wonder this work has already begun to collect prestigious industry awards”.

George also supported feed the need with shots of the kitchen operating to record the halls use. But also a full days shoot for our GrillMarks web pages.

Thank you George for your photographic genius. 

Alistair Warren

Produced the fantastic and fun Feed the Need 1000th meal video showing and “telling the tale” brilliantly. Thanks Ali for the many hours spent crafting a masterpiece ..

.. Gary Noble a FtN diner, local celeb, our Feed the Need “pin up”  and recipient of the 1000th meal!

Personal monetary donations and contributions

Completely voluntary contributions were very kindly received from our many diners, with cheques or cash donations thoughtfully handed over Covid safely. Often accompanied with lovely thank you notes, which I shared with the team. All the meals were provided free of charge to our shielding/self isolating residents, but some did insist and felt more comfortable on making contributions. Thank you.

Feed the Need was also very generously supported by the following, mostly non-dining residents:

• Frank Walker
• Pete and Sue Schofield
• Jane Lemon
• Shane and Sue Hayward-Giles
• Ed and Sarah Day
• Giles and Jeannie Middlemiss
• Janet Green (team gifts)
• Jane Cowley
• Francesca Atkinson
• Chris Ibbotson via Vicky Graham
• Rob Staines
• Fletcher Adamowicz
• Ros and Dave Ramsey
• Gary and Angela Wallis
• William and Carol Heaton
• Ian and Rachel Richards
• Mark and Rachel Williams via Catherine Whittacker
• Jill Pollock
• Jack and Jane Windsor-Lewis
• Chris Tagg
• Richard Jackson
• Emma Waterland
• Gary Noble
• Margret Parkins
• June Wheatley
• Charlie and Jane Millson
• Janet Foster
• Ann and the late Ian Stokoe
• Lorraine Fenton
• Margret Boyle
• Bernadette Drummond
• Lizzy Joyce
• Pam Knight
• Charlie and Judy Hammond
• David and Jacqui Ake

I can assure you all, we made absolute best use of your generosity and we always achieved virtually no waste. Thank you very much for your support and donations.

Thorner Community Fund

I was approached by the TCF committee as they were keen to help. The fund has specific criteria that needs to be met. It was agreed TCF would reimburse the cost of the environmentally friendly compostable food boxes we used. TCF also provided a donation to our delivery drivers fuel expenses. Thankyou very much for the support TCF.

Thorner Cares

Initially helped by raising awareness of Feed the Need to the shielding people it was supporting. Latterly with the benefactors’ permission they kindly passed donations they had received or had been offered, to FtN after it was clear the funds were surplus to their pastoral activity and requirements. This team also compiled the bundle of ready meal brochures to provide alternative and a continuation of food suppliers, indeed almost a weaning process as FtN wound down. Thankyou Shane Haywood-Giles and team, a sterling job done in their own essential work too.

Thorner Parish Council

A significant donation was gratefully received towards the cost of funding the operation.

Almost like the cavalry arriving in the western movies.

I would like to sincerely thank the councilors for their favorable and kind consideration.

GrillMarks team

Additionally to the usual FtN team our numbers swelled for the public BBQ sessions.

Lucy Taylor not only was an essential member of the FtN ordering team. Lucy also was hands on with some Grillmarks sessions and slipped into “the marigolds” on numerous occasions. Lucy seeing the project first hand took it upon herself to seek some PC funding. Thank you for stepping up, being brill, and taking the initiative.

Esme Darley if you ordered Grillmarks dishes other than burgers or fish, Esme will have created your Chicken, Lamb and Frankfurters orders. Things just look great when Esme has assembled them , it must be a gift ! Having already done a days session in the village deli Esme still insisted on doing her bit to help the effort. Fantastic stuff, and stamina like an Olympian.

Jake Ward his knife skills are legendary, prepping for Grillmarks services all day. Attention to detail is superb, did you wonder why the chicken tenders were well ermm’… “tender”. Jake splits the actual individual component muscles of a chicken breast. Each has a slightly different texture and cooking requirement, when separated each can be cooked to perfection. In service Jake was our burger and fish dish assembler, having previously prepped salad, Slaw, Dopiaza, Rice, salsa’s etc , Awesome Jake! Many Thanks!

Charlie Waterland he was our pedal powered environmentally friendly delivery service. Charlie’s turn-around time was often quicker than the car deliverers. I have no idea how he was so efficient, but that he was. Astonishing “Speedy Waterland” Thorners very own Ultra Deliveroo.

William Darley

As mentioned before not only our IT creator and orders cook times coordinator, but also hands on assistant with the BBQ’s and maintained ever flowing toasted bread. I think in the line of this duty he almost smoked himself on several occasions. Not pleasant on the breezier evenings. Thanks for your perseverance and computer excellence.

William also created this tribute page and the e-commerce GrillMarks site, which was built to enable sales of food to the entire village.

GrillMarks was born

We received many very kind donations for FtN, but I could see costs were escalating as our FtN data base expanded to a peak of 126 at risk residents.

The intention was to generate the funds via GrillMarks to keep the free of charge FtN for our vulnerable’s ongoing.

Essentially subsidised by the remaining residents and reducing my continual bankroll.

GrillMarks site was developed to keep funds completely separate from Feed the Need, I appreciated people were kindly donating food and money specifically for our high risk residents, and not for sale to the general public.

Those residents that had requested to try our food were able to do so whilst in-directly contributing to FtN.

Life was difficult for everyone and we were conscious the youngsters were also missing normality. GrillMarks  menu’s were devised to have broad appeal.

GrillMarks was well received, we intend for it to continue as a commercial operation. When regulation permits it will be touring the national event circuit. We will also run the occasional pop up in the village (by request) and are happy to help local catering requirements if we can. Also available for Weddings, Parties, and corporate events.

Thank you Thorner for your enthusiastic support.