LITTONDALE has bid farewell to Dennis Lund, one of the last of his generation of Dales farmers who has died aged 97.

The ninth child in his family of 10, Dennis was born in 1925 and moved to Litton in the late 1940s, living the majority of his adult life at East Garth farm, which he bought in 1952. Through decades of hard graft, Dennis built the farm up passing on his skills and passion to sons, Stewart and Stephen and grandson Jack who now run the farm estate between them.

The sixth son of Rebecca and William ‘Mowdy Bill’ Lund, Dennis was born at Penyghent Cottage, Upper Hesleden near Halton Gill in 1925. With William working as an itinerant gamekeeper, the family moved often, transplanting to Malham Tarn in 1929 where the family’s younger children attended the school on the estate.

Another move followed to Arncliffe in 1932 which was when dad, William gained his nickname thanks to his reputation as a consummate mole catcher – a standing that often led to him staying away for weeks on end at farms right across the Dales.

Mother, Rebecca opened a shop next to the Falcon Inn in Arncliffe selling, amongst other things, cups of tea to ramblers and cyclists. Moves to Buckden, Hellifield and Malham came later.

Dennis’s first job was at Langerton Farm, near Cracoe, at a time when horses were used to pull the machinery. From here he moved to Litton Hall Farm and then East Garth, at Litton, a farm property previously tenanted by his brother Dick that Dennis eventually bought in 1952.

In those days sheep were wintered at Denholme, near Oxenhope, from December 1 to March 1 and Dennis recalled walking them to Grassington station where thousands then went by train to West Yorkshire. He also remembers them returning black with soot due to the area’s heavy industry. Dennis started East Garth farm with just 54 sheep and one cow, Buttercup – which he’d bought at Otley Auction Mart, narrowly missing buying another lot by mistake since he hadn’t known that taking his pipe out of his mouth was shorthand for a bid!

Some of Dennis’s most extraordinary memories are captured in Litton 2000, a special book created at the turn of the millennium, within which he recalls the time he found a strange object on Barden Moor, carrying it back to the farm at Cracoe where it caused great alarm as it was an unexploded incendiary bomb. Another reminiscence recalls a night when a three-ton land mine was dropped by an enemy bomber at Yarnbury above Grassington.

Dennis’s love of Littondale and its nature and wildlife shone through his farming methodologies and hobbies. He died peacefully at East Garth on February 7 with his grandson Jack and daughter-in-law Sandra at his side and beloved Potts Moor with its myriad of birds and flora visible from his window. He is survived by sons Stewart and Stephen and daughters-in-law Sandra and Andrea and his six grand children and 11 great grandchildren.