Family goes on pilgrimage back to farm it left 72 years ago

Thirty-nine people, some of whom travelled from Norway and Sweden, gathered at Kaker Mill Farm, near Crooklands, 72 years after Stephen Wood moved his wife and children 100 miles to Hankelow Manor in Cheshire.

Among the party, which ranged in age from 10 to 89, was Mr Wood’s daughter Miriam Chapman, of Warton, and four of her siblings.

Mrs Chapman said the occasion was a “very, very happy” one which was “full of nostalgia and so many memories”.

On February 8, 1947, The Westmorland Gazette reported Mr Wood’s move under the headline ‘From Crooklands to Cheshire in 30 trucks’.

The paper described how his cattle, numbering around 90, were milked as usual before daybreak.

He then transported his farm “lock stock and barrel” to Cheshire via a specially-arranged train of 30 wagons - done while a “blizzard was raging”.

Mrs Chapman, 88, said her father, who had owned five other farms in the area around Kendal, moved in order to make the farm easier to manage by having it all in one place.

And, returning to its roots, the family paid a visit to Kaker Mill Farm. Here, they were warmly welcomed by Olive Clarke, who moved in when the Wood family left in 1947.

Mrs Chapman said: “She invited them all in to her kitchen and she just regaled them with anecdotes and just said: ‘Have a look round.’”

Mrs Chapman added that, in 72 years, the “bare bones” of the farm had remained the same, although it was “showing its age a little bit.”

The house, she said, had been “kept beautifully” by Olive, who had “tried to retain the original features.”

Across the weekend the family also visited Roeburndale, where Mr Wood was born, as well as houses in Wray, Burton-in-Lonsdale, Bentham, and Ireby, all of which were connected to his life.

Mrs Chapman said: “I think being all together [was nice] and being able to share memories of our young days, and remember it was a wartime upbringing and so different from what the youngster’s lives are like today.”