A FAMILY hopes to be reunited tomorrow (Friday, March 29) after 5ft snow drifts cut off their remote farm house.

Robert and Helen Collingwood have been apart from their children Jake and Ben for a week after the couple were snowed in at their farm on Stanhope Common, County Durham.

Anticipating heavy snow, the boys were taken to their aunt’s home four miles away in Stanhope last Thursday (March 22) so they could get to school.

Their parents meanwhile stayed at Stewart Shield Farm where they and their sheep have been trapped by snow.

Mr Collingwood, 44, said: " I decided to take the kids to my aunty's house because the kids had missed that week off school because of the weather.

"The forecast was bad and I thought if the kids got stuck much longer, with Easter coming up, they'd end up taking a month off school.

"Wind has been the main problem, the snow catches in it and we are very exposed, there's nothing around here, we're surrounded by moorland."

Jake, 11, and Ben, nine, have been able to get to school from their aunt Dorothy Hepple’s house but hope to return to their farm tomorrow (Good Friday).

Mr Collingwood said:"I've lived here all my life, so I'm prepared.

"On Monday night (March 25) the electricity went out but that was it, everything else has been okay except for being cut off.

"We've got a big chest freezer with plenty of meat, canned food and longlife milk to keep us going."

Jake said: "It's been nice staying at our aunty's but we're looking forward to going home for Easter."