THIS is not exactly the longest apology in the 151-year-history of the Craven Herald but it comes pretty close. Shall we call it the first ever column I have ever written as an olive branch.

Because a couple of weeks back, I gave a talk to the Settle Farmers' Club after a very good (free for me) dinner at the Falcon Manor Hotel and chose, perhaps unwisely, to launch a pretty fierce attack of the public relations skills, or rather lack of them, of the National Farmers' Union.

What I did not know was that the man deputed to propose a vote of thanks for my efforts - and present me with a pair of handsome engraved whisky tumblers - was Stephen Dew, one of the two Craven Group secretaries of the NFU!

It is difficult to know who was the more embarrassed. I would never knowingly offend a guest at such an occasion and Stephen, quite rightly, felt he could not allow my marks to pass without mounting a spirited defence of his organisation. So there followed a brief but quite sharp debate which brought the house down with laughter and I promised to contact Stephen to give him a chance to say his piece.

Now this is why this is not an apology. The NFU's PR is terrible. In the eyes of the townie taxpayer, the image of the moaning farmer has long flourished.

And in recent rural disasters, they have unfairly taken most of the blame for things like BSE (for which the cattle feed companies were guilty) and even for foot and mouth (which became a nationwide debacle because the Government tried to cover it up for the vital first two weeks).

But I never intended to attack the union itself or, much more important, men like Stephen Dew and his co-secretary Tim Palmer who, at present, are helping to guide Craven farmers through the biggest revolution in British agriculture in 50 years.

Farming in the Dales is, almost by definition, a lonely task, which is one of the many reasons why farmers - or, more particularly, their sons and daughters - are leaving the land in droves.

This is exacerbated by falling incomes. Many hill farmers work for less than the minimum wage of £5.40 an hour when their seven day weeks are taken into consideration - and a huge weight of paper work which is now avalanching on to their kitchen tables from Brussels and Whitehall.

This adds to a profession - nay, a way of life - in deep gloom. And it is to people like Stephen Dew that these isolated men and women often turn when they need advice, solace - or perhaps just a bit of a chat when shouldering the lonely burden.

"One of the things our members like best is that we will go see them face to face," Stephen told me at his bustling office at Skipton Auction Mart.

"Sometimes that presents you with a bit of a problem when you are driving along a track near the top of Malham Cove and the snow is beginning to get heavier. There are nights when you wonder if you will get home. But you make the call anyway - people look forward to your visits."

Stephen, 38, is a North Yorkshire lad from the other side of the county, born near Malton and spending much of his childhood in Scarborough. Although both sets of grandparents were involved in farming, his dad was a salesman for a glass company and, as a boy, Stephen had no special leaning towards agriculture.

But, doing his A-levels, he found he wanted to be outdoors so he quit school and went to work on a farm on the North York Moors. The farmer was on the national executive of the NFU and suggested it might offer a career for the young man.

So off he went to the famous agricultural college at Askham Bryan, near York, worked as an assistant group secretary for the union in Scarborough and then became Settle group secretary in 1990.

"Things were much different in those days," says Stephen, who lives with wife Ruth and their two young children near Langcliffe. "For a start, there were many more farmers and they came to us for advice all the time.

"I once helped a member to sue the Royal Mail for £8 because the postie had run over two of his chickens - and we got it too. On the other hand, we were involved in much bigger negotiations with the utility companies who wanted to run pipes or electricity lines across farmers' land.

"These days, because of the compensation culture, negotiations like that we pass on to our team of professionals in London: we can't afford to get it wrong and expose the union to a possible legal action."

With fewer farmers, the union itself had to re-organise. The Settle and Skipton offices were amalgamated and Stephen and his colleagues sell insurance policies and other financial products via NFU Mutual.

This provided the income that keeps local branches afloat and, indeed, it seems to be good business: "In the beginning we only had one girl helping us out. Now we have a staff of eight, so we are creating jobs too."

They'll need all the help they can get over the next 18 months as the notorious European Common Agricultural Policy is re-structured to reward farmers more for their work in maintaining the countryside and less for producing often unwanted livestock.

"It will be a tough, very worrying 18 months for our members but, in the end, I am convinced things will be much better.

"It will allow them to produce whatever they can find a market for, give them their freedom back to operate as businessmen."

There you are. An optimistic figure in farming! That's what we need, not more doom and gloom.

NFU PROs, please note.