YORKSHIRE folk have shown the world how you really support the world’s biggest cycling event, Le Tour de France. The word “welcome” is now synonymous with “Yorkshire” and the county made it a weekend of unforgettable memories.

It seemed that every Yorkshire man, woman, child and sheepdog were along the two stages to cheer all the cyclists on their gruelling task of skill and fitness.

What value can you put on the hours of television and newspaper pictures reflecting three great cities – Leeds, York and Sheffield; the town of Harrogate; dozens of Herriot villages and stunningly beautiful Dales landscapes shown – in what we all know and take for granted of God’s Own County – to several billion viewers in 190 countries?

This must have been Yorkshire’s finest hour in the last century. What I shall never forget is the sound of all the bikes as they flashed round the corner of the village of West Tanfield at heart-pounding speed.

All due credit must go to the man behind the brilliant idea and its success, Gary Verity, and the Welcome To Yorkshire team for pulling off the most audacious deal of all time. Big thinking gets big results.

If Mr Verity doesn’t get a knighthood in the New Year’s Honours, the selection process needs a new stage.

Keith Massey, Mill Lane, Acaster Malbis, York.