CHAPTER 13As was only to be expected, the affairs of Valehead House had proved a rich topic of conversation at the inn. The licensee at the Valehead Arms found business was booming—he had not had such a busy time since the Jubilee, so he told his wife. Mrs. Yeo demurred at this.
“Then there was the coronation, and there was September 3rd, 1939,” she said.
“Aye, maybe, but we never ran out of cider neither of them times,” objected Ebenezer Yeo.
“And cider wasn’t rationed neither,” retorted his better half.
Despite the cider shortage—and for draught cider to run out in a Devonsire inn was an epoch-making event in itself—folk continued to crowd into the bar. The locals of Valehead were outnumbered by visitors from all the surrounding country, as far afield as Tawton and Starford Abbas. Th
