I HAD the pleasure to see firsthand last weekend the hard work that goes on behind the scenes to stage Bolton’s incredibly successful food and drink festival.

Every year I wonder how the event can get bigger and better, but it always manages to do so.

TV chef James Martin, who has been top of the bill for the past 14 years, declared it the best food and drink festival in the UK and he should know.

Think about that for a minute, because it really isn’t hyperbole.

Michelin starred chef Michael Caines, who has been involved with the festival for the past eight years, agrees.

He and James are impressed with the passion of all those organising the event, as well as the partners who support and sponsor it.

The other key element that ensures the pair keep returning, is the support of the community.

People come from all over the UK (and the world) to see the festival, but it is the people of Bolton’s support that makes this such a special event.

There are people of all ages and cultures enjoying themselves.

Aiden Byrne, who runs Restaurant MCR in the centre of Manchester, wholeheartedly supports James and Michael’s view too.

He says there are very few festivals as ambitious as Bolton’s and it is even rarer to see events take over the whole of a town centre and incorporate live music, entertainment and fun for all ages.

As I’ve said before, it is easy to moan about the place where you live and I’d be lying if I said everything was perfect.

The ‘I love Bolton because...’ campaign launched this year to help promote Bolton positively rather than standing back and whingeing without getting involved to make things better, has attracted lots of good feedback.

So let’s be proud of where we live instead of talking it down. There are lots of great things to shout about and plenty of plans coming to fruition.

The food and drink festival is an event we should rightly be proud of, as well as other jewels like the Octagon, the Market Place Vaults, the Library and Museum, Bolton College and the university and – as Masterchef’s Gregg Wallace pointed out when he visited the festival on Sunday – we are just 10 minutes from the most beautiful countryside.

The key element that makes anything successful, particularly the food and drink festival, is team work.

James Martin was keen to stress that as we chatted. Using an apt food analogy, he said: “All the ingredients need to be in place.

“I’m just one currant in the fruitcake – it’s the team working together with a collective passion and will to make something a success that ensures this is such an amazing event.”

“And the people of Bolton are just bloody brilliant. I keep coming back here because of how lovely and friendly they are. They make the festival what it is today.”

Finally, this is my last regular weekly column for The Bolton News (I can hear the weeping and wailing) and – with the exception of unwanted comments from the odd (very odd) anonymous trolls – it has been a pleasure. Thank you.