Twelve Pairs of Boots is a memoir of the seven years Joan spent on an English farm, raising her ten children and working the land, together with her husband Alan.

It is a tale of financial risk and personal adventure, of thinking big and taking the bull by the horns. It is also a record of a significant portion of the children’s lives, and the events that shaped the family over time.

The story starts with the couple tentatively exploring a pair of dilapidated farm cottages in Kent, wondering whether they might be renovated and knocked into one. If so, the result would be a spacious home for their large family, while the dozen acres of farmland might provide a source of both food and income.

After several false starts, the purchase is made and the renovations completed. What follows are several years of hard work in taming the land, trying numerous methods of farming, some more successful than others.

A wide range of fruits and vegetables are grown, some with relative ease, others only after protracted toil and trial by disaster. The list of animals grows too, ranging from chickens and goats through to cows and pigs – and one particularly stubborn donkey.

Joan relates the various trials and tribulations with her trademark humour, sharing both the hard lessons of rural subsistence and broader observations on life and love.

The memoir includes the family’s growing passion for horse riding, their strained relations with the local inhabitants, and several brushes with the supernatural.

Told in an intimate and personal style, this book captures vividly a key passage in Joan’s life and provides compelling reading from start to finish.

To buy a copy on the Amazon website, click on the button below: