Miss Read heard about the sale of Tyler's Row from the always well-informed Mrs Pringle
- & before long Fairacre was alive with rumours. Why were the present owners selling? Was it true that a football pools winner was about to buy it? Had Tyler's Row been condemned
- or was it to be restored? All rumours are soon laid to rest when Peter & Diana Hale arrive in Fairacre to view Tyler's Row with plans to knock the middle two cottages into one & create their own rural haven. But the Hales soon discover that Fairacre is no Utopia but a normal English village with all the usual troubles...