Hannah Hauxwell: Self

Quotes 

• Barry Cockcroft : How are you looking after yourself, all on your own down here?

  Hannah Hauxwell : Well I have to do as I can. I don't do so badly. But sometimes in winter time I haven't always time to get a meal, much less cook one. All my time and energy's taken up with looking after the cattle. I don't get about as swiftly. One doesn't get about as quickly as they used to or do things as easily.

  Barry Cockcroft : Hannah, you're not getting any younger and your health isn't perhaps as good as it could be. How many winters like this can you stand, do you think?

  Hannah Hauxwell : I don't know. I'll just have to see. That's the only thing - to hope for the best, and just see how it goes. We all... that's life. We just have to travel on as we can.

• [now aged 60, Hannah's health is starting to fail and she is struggling to cope with the hard winters] 

  Barry Cockcroft : Let's talk about the future. You know that a lot of your friends are worrying about you - they worry every winter - and they're rather hoping there'll be a major change.

  Hannah Hauxwell : Yes, the time will come. Perhaps pretty near. But it is a proper... a big upheaval, emotionally, physically, mentally. It's just as if my world was falling to pieces. Everything I've known and I'm sure of. Security, everything. I don't know how I'll leave here. Or how I'll feel after I *have* left. It's my world. And it's lovely - lovely scenes.

  [Hannah's eyes fill with tears] 

  Hannah Hauxwell : The moonlight on the water. I think it's one of the loveliest things. I stood and watched sometimes even when I was tired. In the winter time - I don't like the winter. It's marvellous. I'm very lucky to live in such a lovely place.

• [Hannah is looking out over the reservoir beside her farm] 

  Hannah Hauxwell : I always found solace and comfort with the water. Even the times when things weren't so good, I'd come down here, to what I call my beloved Mississippi and Hunder Beck. I *am* happier, through that iron gate, than in my own fields. The beauty - to me there's nowhere like it, never will be. And whatever I am, wherever I am, this is me. This is my life. And if there's a funny old person in years to come - a ghost walking up and down here - it'll be me. A big part of me, wherever I am, will be left here. That's me. There's nowhere else. There's nowhere like it.

• [last lines] 

  [Hannah is leaving her farmhouse to go live in a nearby village. The removal van is being towed by a tractor up a snowy lane, with a glorious sunset behind it. She takes a last look at the house where she has lived all her life] 

  Hannah Hauxwell : [tearfully]  Whatever I am, wherever I am, this is me.