HEWITT'S HISTORY FILES

HEYSHOTT has been home for the past 28 years for 81-year-old June Thomas Reed, the longest she's ever stayed anywhere in a life in which she's had - and always will have - itchy feet.
By The Newsroom
Published 1st Aug 2007, 12:48 BST
Updated 8th Jun 2018, 03:26 BST

The same itchy feet which took her on a three-year epic travelling the country selling teas and hot dogs from an ancient truck.

With her was her great friend and Heyshott neighbour Jean Farguson. Jean had an elderly mother; June by now had a teenage son.

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"We decided that we would get a property between us and divide it into separate homes and share. We had been looking at all sorts of things and then saw a tiny advertisement in the Telegraph. We just came down and looked at it."

The fact that it was a timber-house was offputting; but the gorgeous views of the Downs clinched it - and the house was soon brick-faced, so opening the next chapter in a friendship which had been deepened during their three-year odyssey.

During those years the pair toured race tracks, car rallies and fairgrounds - an experience which gave them a host of cherished memories which June has distilled into As You Like It Or A Little Bit Of The Unusual (Authors Online, 9.99 - www.authorsonline.co.uk; also available from Amazon and bookshops).

"I came from Wales and I worked in a hotel in North Wales looking right over Snowdon, but then I got itchy feet which I always seem to get every three years", June recalls.

For full feature see West Sussex Gazette August 15

Related topics:HistoryTelegraphNorth WalesAmazonWest Sussex Gazette