Croft Farm

A Memory of Lumbutts.

My memory is a life time!  I first came to Croft Farm, just above Lumbutts when I was 18 months old.  My dear, dear Aunty Kath and Uncle Geoff lived there then.  She was my mother's, sister's, sister-in law - so absolutely no blood relation to me!  But both Aunty Kath and Uncle Geoff turned out to be better than my own parents to me.  Oh! don't get me wrong, mum and dad were good, but dad died when I was 13, and mum never recovered.  Aunty Kath and Uncle Geoff picked up where they left off.  He gave me away when I got married.

There are far, far too many memories for me to write down here.  I spent all of my summers at Croft Farm, and I thank God every day for them.  There was walking and exploring on the tops, with the Wareing children, there was milking in the mornings and evenings, collecting eggs, haymaking, riding on the hay cart and on the tractor, the silence of the moors apart from the cry of a curlew or the sweet sweet sound of the sky lark above the greener than can be imagined fields.  The hollow sound of the brook at the bottom of Gaddins moor, the swallows that nested in the barn in the summer - jet fighters of the birdy world!!  

The kittens that I saved from being drowned - cos that many kittens couldn't be kept - but I did, and brought one back to Liverpool with me and called him Sooty. Borrowing Mr Bracewells horse, Johnny for the summer.  Johnny being a cart horse, and me being totally mad about horses - trying to collect him in the worst rain storm ever when I was 11!!

Losing control of the hose pipe, which had a massive force behind it and it behaving like a manic snake, and soaking me - and Aunty Kath not being too pleased.  The hot, hot summers, the smell of hay - which to this day still makes me want to cry, because smell is the most powerful of the senses and brings it all back immediately, and unadulterated.  The amazing thunderstorms, which echoed up and down the valley, and terrified both Aunty Kath and me.  Aunty Kath introducing me to Neopolitan ice cream during one of these storms.  Kathy & Carol - pair of calves, which I had to feed with a bucket of milk morning and evening that same summer.

The fabulous meals - the baking, the cooking, the smell of the farmhouse kitchen which used a Raeburn and always stayed warm - even in the hottest summers, cos it heated the hot water.  Aunty Kath putting fresh onions in vinegar on the table when a salad was being served - what an innovation.  I'd never, ever known anything like it!!  The smell of her pies and pasties.  The cakes, and pastries.  The cream horns she did one day for the Ladies' Guild tea - they were all coming and did.  I don't think she'd ever done cream horns before!  Getting the cream from Farnaby's farm, just up the road - cos they separated it and Uncle Geoff didn't, he just sent his milk off in churns to the Milk Marketing Board!

Going to Reuben Ratcliffe's 'Top 'o t'hill' turkey farm - what for I never knew.  He and Uncle Geoff were old friends and just talked and talked.  The smell of Uncle Geoff's chicken coups or 'Hen coytes'.  Locking them up of a night so foxy didn't get them and me smashing a piece of glass by dropping it on the hard packed mud and being told that Mr Fox would have them all by morning, cos he could get in through the hole it would make in the wall.

Spending time with Joss Kenworthy, who God Bless him, went up the field to see his sheep and was found a little while later with a handful of hay in his hand, ready to feed them - gone.  Moved on to a better world - but where that is compared to my wonderful, marvellous, paradise is - one can only wonder.

Uncle Geoff and Aunty Kath died within 8 weeks of each other, he in his sleep at Croft Farm and she in Halifax General, when living became just too much for her after his loss.  He was 78 when he died on 28th Sept 1996 and she 88 when she too left me 15th Nov 1996.

He gave me away when I married Bill and no matter how many years may pass I tell them both each day that I love them and always will.  They saved me.  A sad misfit from the city, who is still trying to get back to what I had with them, there on that most marvellous, wonderful, fabulous, beyond dream place.

The farm has been sold now to someone who I don't know.  I wasn't included or consulted.  All I can say is there are simply no words to say what I feel for the farm. It is beyond magical.  It is my heart's desire.  Peace is found there and if only everyone could find what I found there, there would be no trouble anywhere, anytime.

I love you Aunty Kath and Uncle Geoff.  I always have and always will.  Thank you so much for all you did for me.  You are truly the best ever.  

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