The White family moved into the wooden house on the hill in Loughton in 1950. This was Jean's dream of a perfect home in which Ken, Val and Dennis could settle into their older childhood years. To complete the dream there was a sheltered patio with a fishpond, and a mahogany bench with its table. "Mahogony will last a long time" Jean declared.

Personally I (Val) have memories of happy hours in the sunshine, sitting on the bench shelling peas or preparing sprouts with Jean.

Jean’s painting of her beloved patio has moved around with me, as has the bench and its table. First it moved from New Barn to The Uplands, where it mainly lived outside the kitchen. Occasionally we all gathered there. Sometimes the table moved on to the lawn whilst young Miranda splashed happily in some water.

When the Uplands bungalow was sold, Ken and Martin drove some furniture from Loughton to my (Val's) house in Crowan, Cornwall. The garden bench and table came too, almost the only furniture I felt a warm attachment to.

They lived in the sunny Cornish garden, occasionally used by Martin and Debbie when they visited for the daffodil picking. Jean once in a while visited from the local nursing home where she now lived.

After Jean died in 1988, I (Val) moved to Totnes and the bench with its table came too.

Again many happy hours were spent on it with visitors, including two blind students from Tibet.

After 25 years in Totnes, it was time for me (Val) to sell my cottage and move in with Miranda. The bench spent a year or two in Rebecca’s back yard in nearby Buckfastleigh before travelling to our spacious garden in Whitestone near Exeter.

Here we all spend more satisfying hours sunning ourselves on the bench, listening to the neighbouring sheep, the birds, the overhead aircraft and the passing tractors and generally watching the plants and trees grow.

We move the elderly bench with care, it is now rather fragile.

We love and cherish the mahogany bench, now over 60 years of age.