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have to hide or go out until he had left! We had started our dinner when who should arrive walking up to the house but Clare! She was with John the man she was later to marry. They walked hand in hand down our drive both dressed as hippies. They were barefooted and both had long hair to below their waists. “Hi Folks” said Clare, “this is John, he’s joining us on the holiday!” Pamela’s mother nearly choked on her meal.

“I’m not having a holiday with that!” was her startled answer. I intervened, “Come now Nanna, we did say all the kids could bring a friend.” So it was agreed we would all leave in the morning.

We arrived at Wivelscombe and found our lovely-modernised barn but to our horror the annex was not yet completed. The building was up but the roof was still required. We had no choice we all had to fit into the barn and its three bedrooms.

There was only one way this could be achieved. Nanna and Connie to share the large downstairs bedroom. The boys to take the small upstairs bedroom and the girls in the other larger room. Pam and I would sleep on the couch in the lounge. This was not ideal for we had to wait until everyone else had gone to bed before we could even make ours.

John’s girlfriend was a real tomboy. That night she started a real pillow fight in the girls room which involved throwing anything at anybody, including Anne’s ridding gear. Unfortunately Clare was allergic to horses and her eyes began to stream and her nose became blocked from the riding gear. She came downstairs and asked to sleep with us in our tight fitting bed. I called out and shouted to the girls telling them to stop fighting and go to sleep.

We pleaded with Clare to try once again to sleep upstairs. So off she went and silence fell on a tired family.

The following morning Pamela’s mother made herself busy organising tea in bed for everyone. Actually she did very little but ensured Connie prepared everything to her satisfaction, but Mrs. Wakeling insisted on taking tea to her favourite grand daughter, Clare, in person. A moment later there was a scream and mother in law came down the stairs in a dreadful state. She pointed up to the bedroom and told us that there was a man in Clare’s bed! We rushed up to find John scratching his head wondering what all the noise was about. John was in the bed alone, the other young girls were still asleep around him and Clare was not there at all, she was in boys room with her brother!

A few days later Mrs. Wakeling was walking in the area with Connie. She stopped to chat with a local villager and in conversation mentioned she was staying in the area with her grandchildren. Thereupon a villager invited them both into her garden from where there was a view of the hippies sunbathing naked. Mrs. Wakeling could not miss such a spectacle and walked to the end of this woman’s garden. From where she looked over the wall only to see her favourite grand daughter lying naked in the sun with John likewise undressed and sunning himself beside her!

Sometime in 1990 our eldest daughter Clare had a “ smear test” which was positive she told us of it at the time indicating she was going to obtain medical treatment to clear it At the time she was going through a difficult period in her life. She had always been a Hippy- type She had first moved to Bath where many Hippies lived but following problems with her marriage and her divorcing John she moved down to Totnes in Devon to live a more open country life. She even found that Totnes was too

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