All this country is rich in history and tradition. Climb Bury Hill and look for the remains of the camps and forts the ancient Britons made; you may be lucky enough, as many others have, to pick up a flint arrowhead. Explore the road that swings up and down hill to the market town of Bishop's Castle and then, another day, try to find an old inn that reminds you of the one to which Mr Cantor took Dickie and Mary.

There is no other place in England quite like hidden, mysterious Clun, but although the castle, the bridge and the river are real enough, you will never find the house called Keep View, nor the farm Bury Fields, and neither, I am sorry to tell you, is there really a mysterious house called Grey Walls. I made all these up and they are as imaginary as the characters you will meet in these pages.

But I hope you will like the children and people you can never actually meet as much as the real Clun and its wild hills if you are ever lucky enough to go there.

I must also explain that this special edition is a little shorter than the original story which was first published in 1947, but the adventure, which I hope you will find exciting, has not been altered.

M. S.

The Lone Pine Club

The Lone Pine Club was founded as a secret society of young friends, at a lonely house called Witchend in a hidden valley of the Long Mynd in Shropshire. The first headquarters of the Club was in a clearing, marked by a solitary pine tree, on the slopes of this valley. The original rules of the Club are very simple and are set out in full in Mystery at Witchend, which is the first story about the Lone Piners and was written over twenty years ago. Many readers have asked that the Lone Piners should not grow older from book to book, but as they have now had eighteen adventures - the list is on the last page of this book - it has become necessary to make some of them a little older, and to behave as if, like you, they are living in the 1970's.

There are now nine members of the Lone Pine Club but it is not usual for them all to be featured in each adventure. The following appear in this story and their ages are the same as when Grey Walls was first written:

PETRONELLA (PETER) STERLING. Age 16. No mother, brothers or sisters, but lives with her father, who is in charge of a reservoir at Hatchholt, near Witchend. Vice-captain of the Club, and its co-founder, with the captain-

DAVID MORTON. Age 16. Peter's devoted friend, David lives in London with his parents, but they all come to Witchend, their holiday home, as often as they can.

RICHARD (DICKIE) AND MARY MORTON. David's brother and sister are identical, 10 year old twins.