What's the secret to the best tasting sausages? Happy pigs, small farms, and one other crucial ingredient.

In tonight's edition of The Dales Diary Luke Casey travels to a 75 acre farm in Teesdale to meet Tracy and Matthew Betney. They were trying their hand at diversification and producing a range of pork products to sell at local farmers' markets just before foot and mouth wiped out much of Britain's farming stock. Then on Easter Monday 2001, all 115 of their pigs were culled and the couple had an eight-month wait before they could contemplate restocking. Two years on, Luke finds that they have built up a successful business selling their produce at about 19 farmers' markets each month.

Luke's next stop is the North York Moors, where he visits International wildlife artist Alan Hunt and his wife Judi Kent Pyrah, who specialise in equine art. When they are not working in their studios they can be found on their Arab stud farm, which they set up a few years ago after importing a couple of Arab horses from the USA.

Finally, Luke travels to Coverdale to meet demographic historian Marion Moverley. Marion studies the social history of the Dales, and in particular Coverdale, where some of her own ancestors lived. With the beautiful and tranquil Coverham Church (the church without a village) as a backdrop, she recalls that things in this tiny part of the Dales haven't always been so peaceful; there was a very bloody event in the church, all because one man sat in a pew that belonged to somebody else!