Peter read electrical engineering at Southampton before joining Plessey in Poole. He has worked there ever since, surviving its takeover by Marconi, further conversion into GEC which over enthusiastically bought smaller businesses during the dotcom boom, and its eventual crash. At one stage, almost all the 640 staff at Poole were made redundant, but Peter was fortunate enough to be retained and now works from home. Now the company is owned by Ericsson and he travels to Sweden every three weeks. Along the way he married Fiona Shrimpton and they have two children, Andrew and Olivia (born in 1994 and 1996) who are being home educated. Fiona was a primary school teacher so is well fitted to undertake this but as the children get older, it becomes more challenging. The whole family are much involved in their local church and are keen supporters of the "Operation Christmas Child" shoebox project. After a family trip in July 2002, Peter wrote:

After Tiverton... Corfe Castle, and then to the heart of Hardy country.

Today, we've had an excellent day's walk round the countryside where Thomas Hardy lived and wrote about. We followed a route recommended in our 'Family walks in Dorset' (a birthday present to me from Andrew a couple of years ago), from Higher Bockhampton, were TH was born, over the meadows to Stinsford (where one of his graves is - there's another in Westmisnter Abbey), and back through the woods of Puddletown Forest.

We enjoyed spotting a wide variety of insects, butterflies, birds and plants. Highlights: about 40 Peacock caterpillars devouring a single nettle plant, even though there were many other nettles about; lots of Small Heath butterflies flollopping about in the verges (they don't seem to fly very fast); an adder that Fiona was about to step on, but wriggled off into the hedge before she could (much to her relief); fine red poppies scattered about in a golden wheat field, some fine old-breed pigs and an emu (at Kingston Maurward agricultural college).

The weather was just right - partly cloudy, partly sunny, but lovely and warm for a relaxing picnic lunch in Stinsford churchyard. Just the sort of day to appreciate the English countryside at its best.

We also had a great day out the other day at Corfe Castle, continuing the castle theme from our Tiverton holiday. Do you all know the story of how our great great great great great great great great great grandmother Mary Bankes held out against the Parlimentary forces for a couple of years during the Civil War? The castle was only captured in the last year of the war due to a friend-turned-traitor who opened the gate from the inside and let Cromwell's forces in. You can still tell how formidable a fortress it must have been, even though they blew it up very comprehensively in 1646. Actually, it wasn't at all an ancient family seat - John Bankes had only bought the place (as a country retreat) about 10 years before, and never really got time to enjoy it, what with the war. After the restoration, he built Kingston Lacy house instead of rebuilding Corfe, so that's where our subsequent next few grandfathers lived.

The children enjoyed scrambling up to the top of the hill (and running down again), and we all enjoyed imagining different periods of its history. (We have been listening to a set of audio tapes from the library, featuring fictional accounts from different historical events, centred around Corfe, from Roman times to the present day).

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