Read in 2019 - 12: Seasons of My Life

Seasons of My Life
Hannah Hauxwell with Barry Cockcroft

Were it not for Yorkshire Pudding's post about Hannah last year in November, I possibly would have never heard about her. But once I knew, I wanted to know more, found this book online and ordered it. Finally, I got round to reading it.

It is not the same book as the one YP read, but it is also her life story told in her own words, written down and put together in neat chapters by Barry Cockcroft, the man from Yorkshire Television who was responsible for her first introduction to the public in the early 1970s, and became a good friend of Hannah's.

Back then, Hannah was only 46, but with her snow-white hair and ragged clothes was soon dubbed "the old woman from the Dales". She lived on to become really an old woman; when she died last year, she was 91.

Hannah had grown up with loving parents on a farm in a remote Yorkshire dale, but her father was sick and they always struggled to keep the farm going, always relying very much on Hannah's help. In the book, she tells of some very fond memories she has of both her parents, but that childhood happiness did not last long.
Eventually, her father died, and an uncle came to live in the farm with her and her mother. One by one, her uncle and her mother also died. Hannah was all alone with the few cows and other animals that were left, in a farm house without electricity or running water, and of course no central heating, washing machine, fridge or any other of the comforts most of us can not imagine living without.

She loved her animals, they became her family; living on the remote farm with most of the other farms being abandoned, sometimes she went for 10 days without seeing or speaking to anyone but her animals.

Money was extremely sparse; the book says that her yearly income was sometimes as low as 150 pounds, 280 if it had been a good year. Malnutrition, the relentless hard work and extreme weather conditions took their toll on Hannah's health, but she plodded on, never even considering giving up, selling the farm and moving into a comfortable cottage in a village or small town.

The TV documtenaries made her famous, and she was even invited to a garden party at Buckingham Palace - the woman who had only left the Dales for one or two outings with a group of her community when she was young! A modest wealth came with fame, but she was not interested in money as such - the first thing she did was buying more cows, which meant an even bigger workload for her.

Eventually, aftter years of urging from her friends, she sold up, auctioned most of her antique furniture and farm implements, and moved into a cottage in the nearest village. She now lived in comparable luxury, but never changed her ways or manners - she was always Hannah, the soft-spoken, well-read lover of music and animals, and of her land, which was the home she never wanted to leave.