On Monday May 19th Gill and the two girls' 'banana boat', Northland, docked at Sheerness after a good trip with fine weather. Although having two small children to look after had been a trial at times the crew had been very good in helping amuse the girls, Elizabeth being very spoilt by the captain.
They were met by my parents as Gill's mother was suffering from the bipolar disorder which blighted much of the latter years of her life and Gill felt it would be best to go to Hastings to allow the children time to settle. They were quickly returned to English ways, with the trip from Sheerness to Hastings broken at a pub, 'The World's Wonder', for a lengthy lunch break.
My parents were still in 'Little Heath' though they were actively looking to move back down to Hastings Old Town. The family stayed there until the end of the month when....
....my mother drove them to a pub half way to Gloucester where they met Don and Bea, returning with them to Cranham.
There Gill took possession of the car which her father Don had bought and done up for us. It was an Austin 1300GT, an upgrade on the Morris 1100 which I sold in Jamaica for more than we had paid for it in England four years previously, such was the demand for good second-hand cars. The Austin had a lively engine and Gill enjoyed driving it, taking the children to stay with Tony and Hilary at Ludlow, where she met many of the people we had known there.
After returning to Cranham Gill began to suffer increasingly from hay fever, the pollen encouraged by the continuing fine weather, so other visits, for example to her sister Pauline, had to be cancelled. She also had to abandon her plan to meet me at Heathrow when I arrived at the beginning of July.
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