Barry Cockcroft (4 October 1932 – 4 February 2001) was a UK

television documentary Television documentaries are televised media productions that screen documentaries. Television documentaries exist either as a television documentary series or as a television documentary film. *Television documentary series, sometimes called d ...

director, writer and producer. He is best known for his documentary ''Too Long A Winter'' about the spinster

Hannah Hauxwell Hannah Hauxwell (1 August 192630 January 2018) was an English farmer who was the subject of several television documentaries. She first came to public attention after being covered in an ITV documentary, ''Too Long a Winter'', made by Yorkshire Te ...

who lived alone on a remote farm in the Pennines. Cockcroft was born in

Rochdale Rochdale ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, at the foothills of the South Pennines in the dale on the River Roch, northwest of Oldham and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

. After leaving school he started work as a

proof-reader Proofreading is the reading of a galley proof or an electronic copy of a publication to find and correct reproduction errors of text or art. Proofreading is the final step in the editorial cycle before publication. Professional Traditional ...

on the ''

Rochdale Observer ''The Rochdale Observer'' is a tabloid newspaper published on Wednesdays and Saturdays for the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, in Greater Manchester, England. It has been Rochdale's main newspaper since 1856. It has also been a discussion po ...

'' and he soon became a reporter and a feature writer.Guardian Obituary Barry Cockcroft 9 February 2001
Retrieved 29 October 2014 A researcher at

Yorkshire Television ITV Yorkshire, previously known as Yorkshire Television and commonly referred to as just YTV, is the British television service provided by ITV Broadcasting Limited for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV (TV network), ITV network. Until 19 ...

at its inception in 1968, he was making short films about people who lived in the

Yorkshire Dales The Yorkshire Dales is an upland area of the Pennines in the Historic counties of England, historic county of Yorkshire, England, most of it in the Yorkshire Dales National Park created in 1954. The Dales comprise river valleys and the hills ri ...

when he discovered Hauxwell. He went on to write best selling books about her and took her around Europe and to North America for further documentaries. Another memorable documentary made by Cockcroft was ''A Romany Summer'', featuring a family of Romani Gypsies travelling and living around York, dealing in horses and attending the

Appleby Horse Fair The Appleby Horse Fair, also known as Appleby New Fair, is "an annual gathering of Gypsies and Travellers in the town of Appleby-in-Westmorland in Cumbria, England." The horse fair is held each year in early June, attracting roughly 10,000 Gy ...

. He additionally directed ''

The Underground Eiger ''The Underground Eiger'' is a made-for-television documentary that was released in 1979. It details a world record-breaking cave dive of made by Geoff Yeadon and Oliver Statham from West Kingsdale Master Cave, in North Yorkshire, England to Ke ...

'', which detailed the record-setting cave dive of Oliver Statham and Geoff Yeadon. He married Sheila Jackson in 1956 and they had two daughters, Julie Chadwick and Sarah Manley. After Sheila's death he moved to Cornwall and married Celia Hodgkins in 1978; they had a daughter, Lucy Cockcroft.Barry Cockcroft Profile
at IMDb.com. Cockcroft died of

Lou Gehrig's disease Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that results in the progressive loss of motor neurons that control voluntary muscles. ALS is the most com ...

(ALS) in St Ives,

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

on February 4, 2001, at the age of 68.

References

External links

* 1932 births English television directors People from Rochdale 2001 deaths Neurological disease deaths in England Deaths from motor neuron disease {{UK-tv-bio-stub