Hannah Hauxwell  was a bit of an unexpected celebrity in 1973 when her lifestyle was filmed by the BBC’s Yorkshire television. I think it was part of a series called A Hard Life about  people who weren’t living a sort of ‘normal’ life. This book tells how it all came about.  To begin with Hannah was only 46 but she seemed much older as her life was like something from another century. She was the last person standing in a family which had lived in the Baldersdale area of County Durham for several generations. Nothing had changed in all that time, apart from Hannah being left to do all the farm work on her own. There was no running water in the farmhouse and no electricity. There was a small stream about forty yards from the house and often the ice had to be broken on it with a pick axe. There was no road to the farm and Hannah was so desperately poor that she couldn’t even afford the luxury of a dog for company as she could hardly afford to feed herself. She was dressed in rags. Baldersdale is in north east England, County Durham and it was settled by Vikings which is how the area got its name, Balder was Odin’s son in Norse myths.

Despite all that she radiated contentment, she wouldn’t contemplate leaving her harsh life. Hannah understood what was important in her life and it was the land, her ‘beasts’ which were mainly cows, and her love of music and books. Although she was shy she was very talkative whenever she did get into company, making up for all that time when she had nobody to speak to. Her cheerful and stoical personality shone out on TV apparently – and the viewers adored her.

This was a good read, I had heard of Hannah before reading the book, but I hadn’t realised that her farm was near where we have been visiting friends in the north of England. I didn’t see the TV documentaries, I don’t think I would have been that interested in watching them when I was 13 or 14, after all she wasn’t T.Rex or Bowie, but I did see her being interviewed on Wogan, she seems to have taken the country by storm, and her personality captivated viewers all over the world, and they sent her gifts and cards which filled up her home. Life was a bit more comfortable with the money that she got for making the documentary. At least she wasn’t in danger of starving to death! She was even invited to royal garden parties and was voted Woman of the Year.

Hannah reminisces about all the neighbours who used to live in the dale, back in the days when it was quite well populated. It was a hand to mouth existence for most of them, but if anybody had a bit of spare food they shared it around with the neighbours. The narrative switches to Barry Cockroft from time to time as he explains the background of how he came to make the documentaries and people’s reactions to Hannah.

She eventually realised that  she couldn’t continue that way of life forever.  She couldn’t stand another freezing cold winter and she did sell her farm and moved to a cottage in a nearby village. This is an entertaining and informative read, full of  social history, there are a lot of photos of the neighbours over the years, and it’s funny in parts. Hannah was a character.