An unwelcome visitor

We decided that we needed a good holiday and so we booked in a few days at the Lamb Inn Great Rissington - an old pub close to Bourton-on-the-Water where Grandfather Lockey lived before he left to join the railways as a porter in 1902. Have a look at http://www.thelamb-inn.com/index.html. This is a comfortable hotel with good staff and wonderful food

We had a wonderful few days and found the cottages where the Lockey family lived in the 1841 census and the 1861 census. There is evidence that the family lived in the cottages from may be 1798.

On Thursday morning we received a telephone call from Samantha asking us to cut short our holiday because during the night a gentleman had driven his 4X4 through our touring caravan and into the side of our house.

Here are some photographs of the house and mess we returned to :-

This is taken from the point at which he left the road doing "30mph" and "aquaplained" over the field into the garden - so he says

On the way he picked up the two berth caravan and pushed it across the drive and into the store room door. If the caravan had not been where it was he would almost certainly been killed as the weight of the caravan acted as a brake. I cannot see that he even tried to brake as the tracks are clear on the soil as a moving vehicle not skidding.

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When the car was pulled out the damage was clear

Leaving the whole wall to be pulled down and rebuilt plus all the internal plaster work etc

More photos

Michael has been a real friend in need and supported Sam in getting the house sort of sorted before we came home. The East Lindsey Building Inspector was called out by the Police as the building was considered unsafe so the buildings man sat here from 2am in the morning until the police found Sam and she got Michael to come and put the supports into the wall to hold it up while they pulled the car and caravan clear. When the incident was reported to the police they looked in the window and saw the bed upside down against the far wall and thought that the occupier had been either injured or killed. So they had to smash the back door window to climb in and check the house. Glass all over the kitchen and dinning room. The bedroom door was open so the dust and mess was shot all over the new cream carpet.

We have claimed on our insurance for the building work and the contents and our insurance company will claim it back from his insurance. The caravan was not insured so I have instructed JSP to deal with the recovery of the uninsured losses as our experiance of the loss adjusters is not good and we want to be put in the same possition as we were before the incident rather then be left with what the loss adjuster can get away with.

Once we get the go ahead from the insurance company - Michael says that the wall will be up again in about a fortnight but that all the inside will need to be replastered as the roof will need to be taken off and the walls on each corner rebuilt as they are pushed out of key.

So it looks like it will be Christmas again before all the work is done and redecorated. We have asked Michael to build us a wall on the boundary on the Boston side so that it will give some protection from it happening again. We will post progress reports as the work progresses.