HANNAH Hauxwell shot to fame in a TV series about her simple, solitary life on a remote farm.
Quiet mannered and reflective, the 91-year-old touched the heart of the world when her way of life was brought to TV screens in the award-winning television documentary Too Long a Winter in 1973. Ms Hauxwell lived and ran Low Birk Hatt farm, in Baldersdale, with just her beloved animals for company.
Her down-to-earth mannerisms and way with words enthralled audiences worldwide.
She never embraced fame and stayed true to herself. Famously when asked about her celebrity status, she replied: “Don’t be daft, I’m just a plain Daleswoman. I’m just as I am. I don’t think of myself as anything special – if I did, I’m sure someone would give me a good shaking.”
Hannah was discovered by a friend of a researcher at Yorkshire Television while out walking in the Yorkshire Dales. The researcher contacted Barry Cockcroft, a producer at the company, who proposed to make the first TV documentary about Hannah.
What followed was an extraordinary journey for the prudent farmer in which she shook hands with a Pope and played piano on the Orient Express.
When the cameras came calling, Hannah was 46, unmarried and appeared to belong to a bygone age.
Her farm had no electricity, running water or central heating and she had run it alone from age 34 after her parents and uncle died.
On her solitude, Hannah once said: “Once, I went for a whole three weeks without seeing anybody, and another time, for two and a half weeks. Of course, I missed people.“
Hannah’s favourite cow, Rosie, provided her milk and warmth when Ms Hauxwell bedded down for the night in the byre on colder evenings.
Her first priority was to her animals and in the series Hannah was seen to trudge through ice and blizzards carrying her water bucket and food to them.
It was not until her sixties that the stoic character had to make the decision to leave Low Birk Hatt and move six miles down the road to the village of Cotherstone.
She never returned although she described the move as distressing.
“You can’t live somewhere all your life and have all those memories and walk away without being distressed – there’s chains that bind. I miss the trees, the space and the water,” she said.
Hannah had a real passion for the dale and although unimpressed by hills and peaks, she did love its waterways, greenery and flowers and regularly walked in the area.
“We are lucky to live in an area like this which has lots of wide open spaces,” she said. “If you are unhappy, a good walk puts things right.
“It’s good therapy, she said. “Water is very relaxing. Whether it’s a stream or an ocean, it is very soothing.”
Some of Hannah’s favourite walks were to the Lunes Bridge between Mickleton and Middleton; the Briscoe to Cotherstone Road (although it has far more cars along it now) and a trip down to the Hag to the river.
She described High Force as “magnificent” and “one of nature’s master-pieces”.
“The rocks and trees look like they have come from another place,” she added.
Despite being used to solitude, Hannah welcomed visitors from around the world into her home as her fame grew. She had a fondness for horses and visited Appleby Fair each year to watch them.
In her spare time she enjoyed a wide range of music especially rag time and opera and liked listening to Roger Royle on Radio 2 with his hymns on Sunday evening. Hannah even played her own hymns on a harmonium that had belonged to her mother.
An avid reader Hannah enjoyed detective novels and spy stories as well as the Good Book that was the cornerstone of her devout Christian faith.
In a Winter Too Many, almost two decades after Too Long a Winter, the same TV crew returned to her farm to catch up with Hannah.
The second documentary, saw that Hannah had a little more money, which she
had invested in a few more cows.
The crew followed her to London where she was guest of honour at the Women of the Year gala. But, out of the spotlight, her back-breaking work on the farm continued; and each winter became harder for her to endure.
With her health and strength slowly failing, she had to make a heart-rending decision – to sell her family farm and the animals she adored and move into a warm cottage in Cotherstone.
In Hannah Hauxwell's Winter Tales. Barry Cockcroft also took her around Europe and to New York for further documentaries.
Further documentaries followed. In Hannah Goes To Town, the footage of Hannah’s journey to the Women of the Year gala, which was briefly touched upon in A Winter Too Many, was used alongside additional footage to document Hannah’s entire trip.
Then there was Hannah Hauxwell: Innocent Abroad where in 1992 director Barry Cockcroft once again ventured into Hannah's
life, following Hannah on
her first trips outside of the UK.
On a grand tour of Europe, Hannah visited France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy in her naive but captivating style.
The series was released as a set of DVDs. It proved so popular it was followed by another trip, this time to the US in 1993.
She had seven bestsellers with book sales topping two million, along with 15 television programmes to her name.
She said of it: “It was a lovely time. I was lucky that the people around me, and the film crew, were the quality of people that they were.
“Although I would have second thoughts about getting involved with something similar now as the situation is very different.”
