A British family is spending lockdown in Lapland after getting stuck there while travelling across Europe in a motorhome.

The Irwins, from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, were forced to abandon plans to come back to the UK when Finland shut its borders.

Amelia, 36, and Brett, 37, originally from Johannesburg, South Africa, were in the small village of Kilpisjärvi when the Norway-Finland border closed on March 18.

They are accompanied by their sons Gabriel, nine, and Grey, two in their two-bedroom, two-bathroom Sportsmen Fifth Wheel which has been their home for the last year.

The British government had previously offered to fly UK nationals back home but the Irwins felt safer in Lapland – despite being a three-and-a-half-hour drive away from hospitals and doctors.

Describing their decision to stay put, Ms Irwin said: “It’s safe here in terms of coronavirus. The numbers are down and we are in a really remote part of Finland.

“It’s probably the safest spot.

“We are on the edge of a national park so we are able to go out and get into the snow and see the wildlife. We have views of Lapland with reindeer and see wolverine tracks.”

The family left the UK last March to travel across Europe in their Fifth Wheel motorhome after Mr and Mrs Irwins both lost their jobs in events at the same time.

They started in France before travelling through Italy, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Austria, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Monaco.

The family came to Finland in September to see the Northern Lights but money stayed longer than expected.

They had planned to continue travelling across Europe but lockdown coupled with dwindling finances have put their plans into disarray.

“We realized we couldn’t leave because the Finland-Norway border was closed,” Ms Irwin explained.

“We were going to go through Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and then Belgium. We were aiming to be in Romania for July.”

She added: “We organize conferences and meetings for our clients and that’s how we live. But we’ve lost all of our business.

“Our redundancy package ran out. We thought we’d see the winter season out here.

“We have fallen through the cracks of every government policy so we are not going to get any money at all.”

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