{"id":3273,"date":"2020-09-02T12:26:43","date_gmt":"2020-09-02T12:26:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/patsytrench.com\/?p=3273"},"modified":"2020-09-11T09:32:47","modified_gmt":"2020-09-11T09:32:47","slug":"may-cottage-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patsytrench.com\/2020\/09\/02\/may-cottage-revisited\/","title":{"rendered":"May Cottage revisited"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
The first few scenes in my book The Worst Country in the World<\/em> are set in a cottage in the village of Fiddleford, in Dorset, where my ancestress Mary Pitt was living, with her five children, when she made the momentous decision to emigrate to New South Wales in 1801.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n May Cottage is a Grade II listed building and it still exists. However when I tried to visit it back in 2008 the current owners would not allow me past the back gate. All I had to go on, apart from official records, was the testimony, and some photos and floor plans, from a previous owner, the lovely – and now late – Olive Hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I knew May Cottage as a picture-postcard, two-storey thatched cottage with pink-washed walls. Two living rooms and a kitchen down, two bedrooms up. Not a lot of space for a family of six.<\/p>\n\n\n\n