Alfred Farndale

5 July 1897 to 30 May 1987 

The World War 1 veteran, Alfred Farndale married the independently minded Peggy Baker in 1929 and embarked immediately for the Prairie of Alberta. Defeated by the Great Depression the family returned to Yorkshire where they built a new life from the 1930s

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Tidkinhow

Alfred Farndale, the son of Martin and Catherine Jane Farndale, was born on 5 July 1897 at Tidkinhow Farm and baptised at St Aidan’s Church in Boosbeck. He was the youngest of twelve children.

Alfred in 1902 The boys of Tidkinhow in about 1910 - John, James, Alfred, William, George and inset Martin

In 1901, when the census was taken, he was with his mother Catherine in Newcastle, visiting the Heslop family. In a talk between Alfred Farndale and his son, Martin on 29 July 1982, Alfred recalled, I remember going to school at Charltons near Tidkinhow. We then went to Standard 1 at Boosbeck. We stayed there until we were 14. It was a two mile walk each day. The headmaster was Mr Ranson. I remember Jim, my elder brother catching me fishing and playing truant. He just said "Get in" (he was in a pony and trap) and he took me to a day’s marketing at Stokesley. I remember the second masters name was Ackroyd. I got a fork through my leg and he sucked it out. We were always inspected as we arrived at school. We had to walk past the Bainbridge place and people used to say that he had more sheep on the moor than he was allowed. I remember William looking after me at mother's funeral. I was crying and very upset.

His mother, Catherine Jane Farndale, died in 1911. He continued to go to a local school and was working at home when the war broke out in 1914.

Alfred joined the East Yorkshire Regiment in 1916, but then volunteered for the Machine-Gun Corps and served on the front line with 239th Company at Ypres in France until mid 1917 when he went to Mesopotamia and served in action there until the end of the war. The story of his war years is told in The First World War Soldiers.

Returning to Yorkshire after the War in 1920, I then went to Tancred Grange to help my eldest sister Lynn whose husband had died in 1918. I spent my time between Tancred and Tidkinhow till I married your mother on 16 March 1928 at Bedale Parish Church.

Alfred in about 1920

A certain Peggy Baker was teaching at Malvern School for Girls in the Cotswolds and she became friendly with Grace Farndale, Alfred’s sister, who was a matron. We know that Peggy did not like the Headmistress at Malvern. Grace and Peggy got so fed up that they decided to go to Yorkshire and start a chicken farm near to where Grace’s elder sister, Lynn (nee Farndale) Barker lived, at Scorton, near Richmond. After moving to Yorkshire, Peggy met Grace’s younger brother Alfred Farndale.

Peggy Baker became engaged to Alfred Farndale in 1927.

Alfred at Scorton 1927 Alfred at Tidkinhow in 1927

Martin was over from Canada and he was best man. It was just after my father died in January 1928. My eldest brother, John took over Tidkinhow. Peggy and I had already decided to join the 'Canadians' (his brothers Jim, Martin and George and his sister Kate) in Alberta. We went to Huxley and rented a section of the CPR and you three children were born. However we had bad luck with crops and the slump and we had to go back to England in 1935.

At the age of 29, Alfred Farndale married Margaret Louise Baker of Audlem, Cheshire, always known as Peggy, at Bedale Parish Church on 16 March 1928.

Alfred and Peggy’s wedding

The Prairies of Alberta

Immediately after the wedding, they both went to break open Prairie in Canada. Their voyage to Canada is part of the Atlantic Crossings Story.

Alfred and Peggy’s son Martin Baker Farndale was born on 6 January 1929 in Trochu. Marianne (“Anne”) Catherine Farndale was born in Trochu on 30 October 1930. Alfred Geoffrey (“Geoff”) Farndale was born in El Nora on 10 April 1932.

Alfred and Peggy’s life in Canada is told in Act 27.

Thornton le Moor and Northallerton

Alfred later recalled, we had a farm in Middleton-One-Row in 1936 and then we moved to Sycamore Lodge at Thornton-le-Moor near Northallerton in 1937. That was where Margot was born. Margaret (“Margot”) Lindsay Farndale was born 8 October 1937 at Thornton-le-Moor.

It was too small though and we left it in 1940 after the war had started. We then lived at 117 Crosby Road, Northallerton. I was a farm contractor doing ploughing and threshing. It was very hard work and very long hours. I was Special Constable as well.

Alfred and Peggy’s family in the late thirties: Martin, Geoff, Margot (front), Peggy and Anne Alfred in 1940

Martin later recalled that his parents both worked very hard and times were not easy. My mother looked after us wonderfully well and set very high standards. She taught us all how to behave, how to talk, to dress and conduct ourselves in company.

My father was working very hard indeed at this time. It was hard physical graft and very long hours, but there was plenty of work as farmers grew all they could. Sometimes I went with him and I learnt how to plough on his Massy-Harris tractor. We once ploughed in one of the fields from our old farm at Thornton-Le-Moor where I remembered doing some ploughing with a pair of horses some year before. Frequently on Thursdays I would cycle out to an agreed point and await my father with his threshing crew to bring the men their wages. But all this time my father was trying to get another farm. He went to many, was short listed for some, and turned others down. I went to some with him at weekends and I remember sharing is hopes and disappointments. It was a difficult but exhilarating time. There was not much money, and a lot of hard work. We had always had a car at this time. We had a 1937 Morris 12 which, in 1942, my father exchanged for a Standard 12 which he got from our doctor, Doctor Milne.

In the 1939 Register, Alfred Farndale was a farmer (mixed) living at Sycamore Lodge with his wife, Margaret Louisa Farndale, Martin, Ann, Geoff and Margot records not yet open; and Lerna E Gerrard (later married Hutchinson), single, born 6 February 1918, paid domestic duties.

In World War 2 Alfred Farndale served as a Special Constable throughout the Second World War and was awarded the Police War Medal.

Wensleydale

Alfred later explained that then, in January 1943, we moved to Gale Bank Farm at Wensley. We had been looking for farms for years and this was easily the best, so our luck had changed. It was then about 400 acres, but now it is more. Peggy and I retired in 1972 and we are now living at "Highfields", Eller Close Road, Leyburn."

Martin recalled towards the end of 1942, I came home from school one day to be told by mother that it looked as if we had got a farm near Wensley in Wensleydale.

I had never been there, but I knew some children at school who came from up there. It had always seemed a strange a remote land to me. However I was to cycle out to quickly give the message to my father as he was wanted for an interview. Apparently the existing farmer was not up to the standard demanded in war time by the War Agricultural Committee and he was being turned off the farm. My father was to be interviewed by the “War Ag” and by the Bolton estate on which the farm lay. I remember to this day the excitement he showed saying in his quiet way, “that’s splendid news”. It was indeed the best farm he had bid for and the one he wanted most, some 450 acres between Wensley and Middleton, called Gale Bank Farm. He knew it well and had already done some work on it. A few days later we heard that he had got it, which was indeed wonderful news. It meant a lot of changes. Anne and I were both at Northallerton Grammar School aged 13 and 12 respectively, Geoff was at Wensley House School aged ten, and Margot at home but about to start school.

We moved to Gale Bank on 28 January 1943. I remember it all very well. The furniture van came and everything was packed up. The rest of us went in our heavily overloaded Standard 12. I remember it over heating just outside Bedale and my father going into a farm and helping himself to a bucket of water! I remember our arrival well, the house, and the buildings were quite empty and we children raced throughout the empty house. There were strange smells everywhere, particularly that of smoked bacon, which our predecessors had done for years. We raced through all the farm buildings which were big and extensive compared to anything we had known before. It must have been cold in January and apart from a fire in the drawing room and kitchen in daytime only there was no heat. But I don’t remember it being cold. With great excitement e all chose our bedrooms and then the furniture van arrived and we all helped move our things into the house. The beds were made – the same ones we had got out of that morning in Crosby Road, and we were ready for bed in our new house. Little did we know what a major step in our lives this day was to be for us all. Gale Bank was to become our home, and a firm base for us all, for many years to come.

Geoff and Margot started at Wensley school. Anne and I started at Yorebridge Grammar School straight away. This meant a three mile walk or cycle across the fields and roads to Wensley station, a 15 mile train journey, and then s short walk to the school, then a return in the evening. It meant an early rise, leaving the house in the dark at 7.15am and getting home about 5.15pm.

Gale Bank Farm The Farmhouse at about the turn of the twentieth century

Gale Bank Farm was leased by the Farndale family from 23 January 1943 to 30 September 1998, a period of 55 years. This was the longest tenancy in its history and by then the farm had grown to 401 acres.

Alfred’s daughters, Anne and Margot Alfred with his sister, Dorothy Alfred with his brother John in about 1960 in Guisborough Peggy and Alfred

Alfred and Peggy travelled to Alberta again in 1958. The passenger list for those who landed at Liverpool from Montreal on 29 September 1958 on the SS Empress of England, included Farndale, Alfred, M, 5.7,1897 and Farndale Margaret, F, 24./2/1901, both of Gale Bank Farm, Wensley, Near Leyburn, Yorks, Alfred a farmer.

Alfred farmed at Gale Bank very successfully until they retired in 1971 to Leyburn and lived at Highfields, named after the famous family home of Peggy’s family, the Bakers, on Eller Close Road, Leyburn.

Highfields, Eller Close Road

Geoff continued the Farndale tenancy of Gale Bank Farm. Alfred continued to work on the farm almost until he died in 1987. Alfred was then known by all his grandchildren as ‘Gran’ at Gale Bank Farm.

Alfred (“Gran”) feeding the stock Gran by the River Ure Gran and the deathly landrover

Alfred and Peggy had their Golden Wedding on 16 March 1978.

Back row: Geoff, Anne, Martin; Front Row: Peggy, Margot and Alfred Martin jokes with Alfred and Anne

Peggy (Granny) amongst her grandchildren Grace with Stephen Anne and husband Norman Alfred and Peggy cut their cake

Gran under the tree at Gale Bank Farmhouse Granny at Eller Close Road

Alfred and Peggy with their family in 1986

At Gale Bank in about 1986, Geoff, Martin (back) and Anne, Alfred, Peggy, Margot (front) Geoffrey’s family in about 1986 (Nigel, Barbara, Christine, Geoff)

Alfred Farndale died of prostate cancer, aged 89 years and 11 months on 30 May 1987 at Ruston Hospital in Northallerton. He was cremated at Darlington and his memorial stands in Wensley Churchyard.

Peggy Farndale died at Leyburn on 17 November 1996, aged 95. She was cremated at Darlington and her Memorial is in Wensley Churchyard.

Gale Bank in the 1990s

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The webpages of Alfred Farndale and Peggy Baker and the Baker Family include additional information, chronologies and source material.