“I’ll do what I can,” Joe had told her, but that wasn’t good enough.

She became quite agitated. “No, they mustn’t close it. Miss Carter, my friends, what would happen to all my friends? You must promise.” So he had, and there was no going back on it now.

Of course everyone at Fairlawns had talked about little else for months, ever since the article first appeared in the local newspaper. Many of the old people had become very anxious and upset. Miss Carter, the oldest of them at ninety-six and wheelchair bound, was usually full of the joys of life. But she had hardly spoken a word since the threatened closure was announced. She simply sat, staring into space, lost in deep sadness.

The Council was closing the nursing home down because it was too small – only a dozen beds – and the building was too old and dilapidated. It just wasn’t “cost effective”. That it was a much loved home to twelve old people, a place where they belonged, where they were wonderfully cared for, and where all their friends were, appeared to be of little concern to the Council. Fairlawns would close and everyone would be dispersed to other nursing homes, if others could be found, or if not, then to hospital. There had been thousands of letters of protest sent to the Council, and even to the Prime Minister. Deidre Besant, their member of Parliament, had pleaded to have Fairlawns kept open, in the House of Commons, on television and radio. She had done her best. Relatives, Joe among them, had picketed local councillors. Doctors and nurses were unanimous in their support: to close a nursing home, that was so well run, and when the need for such places was growing all the time, would be a disaster, they said. Newspaper reporters and photographers had been in and out of Fairlawns for months, interviewing staff and patients. The whole community was against closing it down. Yet nothing and no one seemed to be able to prevent it from happening.

Joe handed Paddywack the last of the digestive biscuits. “I had my promise to keep,” he went on. “So if there was a protest, I was there. I organised the support group, collected signatures. Almost everyone who bought a potato off the Tattyvan signed the petition. I got over 15,000 signatures. Towards the end, when Marion was drifting in and out of consciousness, I’d tell her how well it was all going, how many more signatures we’d got, how the Council would have to listen now. I really hope she heard me, but if I’m honest with myself, I’m not sure she did. Sometimes I think it was a good thing she died when she did, because nothing came of any of it. A week after she died the Council announced the date they were closing Fairlawns down. And that’s when I really got angry, when I decided to do it, to pack up the Tattyvan for good and to make one last effort, to protest full-time, until they changed their minds. And by now it wasn’t just because of the promise. Like I said, I was angry. That place, those people, they kept Marion happy. The old people were like brothers and sisters to her, like a family, Miss Carter in particular. And the staff did all they could for her, I reckon I owed them. So I’ve got my tent, my sleeping bag, my little stove, and tomorrow is the big day, the day it all begins.”