A PAIR of Somerset event organisers were shocked to find they were mentioned by PRINCE CHARLES in a new book.

Bev and Sarah Milner Simonds, who run the eat:Festivals company which runs award-winning food events across the county, have been picked out by His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales in the introduction to a new book exploring Somerset.

Deepest Somerset, published last week, is a new publication that explores the people, the places and the roots of the community.

Written by Fanny Charles and Gay Pirrie-Weit, the book is third and last in their series lifting the lid on West Country counties and what makes them unique.

In the book, Prince Charles writes: "Particularly striking is Bev and Sarah Milner [Simonds] description of arriving in Somerset to find that their new neighbours felt completely disconnected from the productive landscape surrounding their town, and how that inspired them to create their food festivals to bring people and the land together."

Somerset County Gazette:
PROUD: Bev and Sarah Milner Simonds, directors of Eat:Festivals

Head of sparkle at eat:Festivals, Sarah Milner Simonds, said: "We were blown away to read the introduction and to be picked out like that - there are over 400 businesses and people in the book and to think of out of all those our origin story touched Prince Charles is mind blowing."

And head of spreadsheets Bev added: "It's nine years (this month) since we held our first food and drink festival right here in our hometown of Burnham-on-Sea.

"Since then, the event here has grown and we have been invited to host festivals in 20 different towns, welcomed over 850,000 visitors, won 27 awards, created 4,890 trading opportunities and generated over £42m of local economic impact.

"We are impressively proud of what we have created and chuffed to bits with this incredible recognition."

Fanny and Gay will be at the next eat:Burnham-on-Sea event on Saturday, October 23 with copies of their book, and the others in the Deepest series.