Having trained in London and Manchester, I found psychiatry in the Yorkshire Dales a little different. Most senior registrar training is done within cities. Most consultant posts are old posts. Moving into a newly created consultant post with hardly any psychiatric service, miles from any city, was a new challenge with clear benefits professionally and personally. James Heriot, our famous local vet, gives the impression of being self-sufficient and isolated when providing his services. Though the countryside is the same, surely the opposite must be true for developing a mental health service.