Our weekend at home in Blackheath was an unmixed pleasure. We caught an early Grey-Green coach from the depot in the middle of Ipswich, and, after nearly two hours it stopped at a pub just outside Chelmsford so that we could queue for lavatories, a pint of beer each for us and lemonade for Gale. Then it took us on until we asked to get off in the Mile End Road where we could walk round the corner past a block of flats to catch a 108 bus through the tunnel to Blackheath Village, Peter’s old route home from school. It took a long time by modern standards as there were no bypasses, but two lane roads through all the villages, but it was easy.

Gale was pleased to see her little cousin Jill again and to be back in the safety and comfort of what was still home.

Once the children were in bed we sat with Spikey, Lynne my sister-in-law and her mother and my sister Helen describing, drawing pictures, interrupting one another as we shared our excitement in our find. Whatever reservations they may have had they seemed nearly as pleased as we were. Helen and Lynne offered to pack up our tents and camping equipment to be sent down. “You will want your bikes,” they said. “What about that old “officers-for-the-use-of” stored in the wine cellar? Would that be useful to keep things off the ground?
Spikey offered at once to deposit her National Savings in the Blackheath branch of Westminster Bank so that we could borrow money against them from the Felixstowe branch if the price turned out to be reasonable. I don’t think we realised at the time just how supportive the family were.

Back in Ipswich Peter’s term was nearly over and we waited to hear that our tents were at the station, and called on Birkin to ask his advice. He promised to come and look.
On Friday, sure enough, everything was ready for collection, so on Saturday Mr Barber drove us down in his lorry with all our luggage and tents, and Birkin met us there in his rather posh car.

Both thought our idea might be possible. As we did not know of any of the difficulties, such as no damp course and not enough headroom plus only two new building licenses that year for the whole of Suffolk, we were quite confident. We thanked our kind advisors. Birkin went away to draw up plans and fight our cause, and we pitched our two tents, large for us, small for Gale, just beyond the mill and settled down for a long summer holiday. Peter’s term finished two days later. We were able to draw water from Yvonne’s kitchen and use their lavatory. The weather was perfect.