85 Escort cold/damp mornings hard starting

I have a 1985 Ford Escort which I have to keep parked outdoors at the bottom of a very steep mile and a half long hill. It's right next to a river and very damp and cold and I only use the car once a week, very early on a Saturday morning. It takes at least five minutes of cranking to get it started with full choke. I then have to pull away up this 1 in 4 gradient hill with four of us in the car. About half a mile up the hill there's a junction and if I have to stop at this the car will often stall and be very difficult to restart. If I keep the choke out it will crank and crank and crank. If I push it in it will fire after a few tries but won't stay running. Has anyone had similar problems on really steep hills with cold engines and a manual choke?

I would say it's just that your engine is old, carbuerated, with a manual choke. With that setup, it's going to be very temperamental on cold and/or rainy days. I've had a Honda accord with a really finicky carbuerated engine before, so I know your struggle.
The hard starts may be helped by checking your air filter, see if it needs replacement. Also maybe the carburetor needs to be cleaned. I ran mine on premium fuel when it got cold, and that helped a lot.
As for the stalling out, that may be due to a lack of patience on your part. Engines like that need some time to warm up. Watch your temperature gauge and wait until its in standard operating range. When your engine is cold it will be down on power, so that might explain the stalling out on the hill. I know if I tried to take on a steep hill with a cold engine in my old Accord, I would have keep my foot down hard and my fingers crossed, however with the engine warm, it would climb hills like a champ, I didn't even have to go full throttle. My choke was automatic but I could tell what it was doing by the idle speed. Anything higher than 1500 rpm meant it wasn't ready. When you actually take off, you shouldn't need the choke at all to keep the engine running. You'll probably notice more power this way and it may just help solve your stalling problem on hills.
Just some ideas, hopefully you'll find something that helps.