Biography and Travel

The genesis of this book is a notebook I found titled this, which Dad used throughout 1995. It starts with a to-do list of their last week at 2 Juniper, then has 2 articles on Mum and Dad’s French holiday of that year, then has a daily diary from mid October to late November whilst Mum and Dad were seeing properties and deciding on 1 Leintwardine Manor as their new home.

Given that the range of this covers moving out of 2 Juniper Crescent in the Spring up to purchasing their new house in the Winter, it makes sense to flesh this period out from any sources that exist. Mum’s diary for the year, and Dad’s motorhome logbook are thus important sources.

The Betws-y-Coed Welsh holiday I went on with Mum and Dad in the Summer is also part of the book “Wales - Ancestry, Family, Holiday”, whilst Dad’s article on The Marches also appears in his autobiographical magnum opus “A Road So Travelled”. Mum’s diaries about leaving 2 Juniper, and the preparations for this, previously featured as the final chapter of “Childhood Home 4 - The Last Few Year”, but here are expanded towards being a complete view, rather than an overview, or taster snapshot.

The Spanish holiday comes entirely from Mum’s diary. It is illustrated with my photographs from the album of super-enlargements. Neither Dad's photos nor my normal album has [yet] turned up.

Any photographs that have been found have been used, but many were not scanned, or have been lost, so the result is based on survival, rather than on what was originally taken.

The end of the year saw Mum and Dad house sit for Rondy in Peterborough, where I would also come home to stay over Christmas.

This book, therefore, serves as a sequel to “Childhood Home 4 - The Last Few Years”, but in the words of both my parents.

From Peterborough to Leintwardine is available to buy in paperback:-