AGED just two-and-a-half, little Winnie Thompson was photographed bottle-feeding a pair of lambs at her family's farmhouse by the much-admired photographer Joseph Hardman.

Now, 87 years later, retired nurse Mrs Winnie Fletcher has decided to share these charming, idyllic black-and-white scenes with fellow Gazette readers - "for Joseph's sake".

She can no longer remember Hardman's 1931 visit to Collinfield, the 16th century farmhouse on the edge of Kendal where she grew up with parents Jack and Gwen Thompson. They had struck up a friendship with the photographer and window cleaner as he travelled around the Lake District documenting the everyday crafts, traditions, agriculture and ways of life that were - even then - changing forever.

It was after seeing a Hardman picture of a lamb and sheep on the Gazette's nostalgia page recently that Mrs Fletcher decided to share the images.

"I think they are the best Hardman did," said the 89-year-old, who lives near Levens and has two sons and three granddaughters. "They were taken at Collinfield manor house. Those steps are exactly the same now as they were then."

The Grade II* listed property with its pepperpot chimneys is no longer a farm, and its fields have long since been built on. But Mrs Fletcher has fond memories of her "wonderful" upbringing in the wood-panelled house she believed was "Katherine Parr's holiday home".

"I had a little pony [Dolly, a black Shetland] and I would ride all over the fields," said the former nurse at Kendal's old Westmorland County Hospital.

"The picture of the lambs following me along the road was on the cover of one of the London newspapers - my one day of fame. It appeared under the headline 'Mary had a little lamb'." Sadly Mrs Fletcher no longer has the clipping and she would love to know if anyone can help her track it down.

Kendal's Museum of Lakeland Life and Industry has a collection of almost 5,000 of Hardman's glass negatives taken between the 1930s and 60s. Rachel Roberts, assistant curator, said the pictures of little Winnie were new to her and described them as "lovely to see".

For more on the archive, visit www.lakelandmuseum.org.uk/joseph-hardman