ALL OUR YESTERDAYS Fairytale childhood on moors

YOU’LL struggle to find a more isolated house than this.

The former gamekeeper’s cottage sitting on the edge of Saddleworth Moor, near Diggle, has been left empty for three decades and recently went on the market.

But a member of the last family to live there has spoken about her childhood growing up on the moors in the 1980s.

Rachel Trpeski, 43, and her family didn’t have any electricity, gas or neighbours in the house, which sits above Standedge Tunnel.

But she says they were some of the best years of her life – and the summers were amazing.

Rachel, who now lives in Cheshire, said: “We had lived in a normal house on a normal housing estate. It was really just chance that the family moved to the cottage.

“My step dad had spoken to the owners of the land and agreed to take it over.

“I don’t even think that we paid rent, we just lived there to look after the land. It’s the most bizarre thing.

“We did have to think of things like sometimes having no electricity, no gas and having to worry about being trapped because of snow.

“I would try and sell frogs to passers by, play with a sheep or take a boat, ‘Tiny Tim,’ out on the pond.”

The house had a flushing toilet and bath, but no hot water, so Rachel and her sister had to share a bath.

Rachel moved into the house at the age of seven, and later went on to join the Army which she said was “easy compared to living down there.”

She added: “We had a real woodburning fire so we used to have to go out and chop wood, we didn’t have any central heating.

“I remember waking up one day and you just couldn’t see out of the windows for snow. We were stuck inside for about a day.”

She likened her childhood to being “like a fairytale”, although the extreme weather on the exposed moorland could be a nightmare.

Rachel said: “Every year we got snowed in at least to the point where you couldn’t leave the house, so we had to go to the shop and stock up on tins and things, just in case.”

There may have been no TV or iPads, but you can’t beat childhood memories like these.

She added: “There was a freshwater stream which would run straight down to the village and was the water source for all of the houses.

“One day we decided to put Fairy liquid into it; it was really bad. There were giant suds and clouds bubbling up from it. It took a few days for it to clear out, the houses at the bottom were without water for a few days.

“The summers were amazing, we had the whole of the moors to play in. We would play with the sheep and pretend that we were sheep herders.

“The house was over the top of Standedge Tunnel as well. There was a massive slate mound – you would have to see it to believe it –and me and my sister would sledge down. It was about 50ft high.”

The property has not been lived in since Rachel left with her family when she was 11.

It has since been bought by property developer Jason Reece for £200,000 at auction, who hopes to transform it into self-sustaining home.

Jason, 46, said: “I live in Diggle and we have known about the house for about 20 years and I was interested then but couldn’t do it at the time.

“We build new houses and do custom work so the plan is to see if we can make this self sufficient, using solar panels and bio fuel generator.

“It is a little bit of a gamble, I guess.”