A WELL-known forager from Denholme has told how her unusual career was inspired by her grandad's fight for survival during the Nazi regime.

Alysia Vasey, known as The Yorkshire Forager, has brought her family legacy to TV shows and the nation's top restaurants for more than a decade.

She appears on James Martin's Saturday Morning show as well as Countryfile and Steph's Packed Lunch.

But her story begins over 70 years ago with her teenage grandad and his brother in the Polish city of Poznan.

"My great grandad was a rail engineer/driver and my grandad and his brother were doing apprenticeships," she says.

"My grandad had noticed that the Nazis were transporting people rather than cattle. People were being taken to this fort and didn't come out."

The 'fort' was Konzentrationslager Posen, where SS chemist Dr August Becker killed over 400 patients and staff from a nearby psychiatric hospital in early gas chamber execution experiments.

Alysia said: "My grandad and his brother would stop the train mid journey. If they could get away with it they would let people out.

"They got caught doing this, and were put into the back of a cattle truck."

As a farmer started a fight, everyone in the back of the truck took advantage of the distraction and sprinted off into the forest.

"The Germans not for a minute stopped hunting them down," she said.

"They had to lay low and live from foraging and trapping rabbits and squirrels."

The siblings eventually ended up in a POW camp in Italy.

After the war, the pair answered the UK Government's call for help to rebuild the economy.

Alysia's grandfather worked for a carpet factory in Bradford and raised four children with his wife.

Her nan and grandad are now in their 90s and living at Sowerby Bridge.

Alysia said: "My grandad used to know all the trees and what you couldn't eat."

She soaked up her grandfather's foraging knowledge.

And after moving to Doncaster with her first husband, she dedicated more and more time to foraging.

Alysia said: "I was part of a growing trend, using natural produce.

"I started working with some top chefs. They had this massive amount of creativity."

Alysia now lives on her partner's farm and forages from the Thornton and Oxenhope area.

She has written a book, The Yorkshire Forager: A Wild Food Survival Journey, available from Amazon and Waterstones.