Rickety Bridge and Stoney Brook

What income they did have, and any money they could scrape together, the McNaughts spent on improving the farm’s production capability. Their first step being to uproot the pear trees and plant vines.

Joy, with her three children, moved onto the farm, leaving Nigel doctoring to pay the bills, and started to learn to make wine. Her experiences are recorded in the book she has written – Headlong into the Red. She tells of how she called Nigel in tears to say she was resigning . Nigel’s reply was that she wasn’t allowed to resign, that he had a consulting room full of patients and she’d better just get on with things.

Having met Nigel in Joy’s company, this repost is a reflection of the financial strain rather than their close relationship. 

Heesom had for some time been at Zorgvleit and the Sanddrift manor house – now renamed Rickety Bridge, had again fallen into less than perfect condition. Joy tells of lying in bed one night and wakening to find she could see the stars through a hole where the roof thatch had blown off.

Some of the McNaught’s hard earned money was spent on improving the labourer’s cottages, unfortunately not to a standard Joy would have considered acceptable but to the absolute limit of what money was available.

www.ricketybridge.com