Chapter 12

I came into the kitchen from attending to the horses. The children were noisily preparing breakfast. The doorbell rang. The children's gaiety died immediately, to be replaced with anxiety.

"Don't answer it, Daddy," Georgie pleaded.

I reassured her everything was under control, but used the door viewer. I saw two women I didn't recognise, who gave off the air of busybody officialdom. Opening the door one of the women flashed some sort of ID, and tried to push past me saying, "We are from Social Services, Child Protec..."

That was enough. I had held my foot against the door for just such an eventuality, blocking the open space with my body. "I'm sorry," I said loudly, "you are not coming into my house." With that I closed the door firmly. Harry, who had followed him into the hall, ran back into the kitchen, and locked the back door.

The women stood outside, loudly proclaiming, "We have right of access Mr Winters. If you don't let us in we shall return with the police and have you arrested."

I phoned both Milla and David. David was about to leave for his office, and promptly diverted directly to my house. When he arrived, the Social Services people tried to follow him in. As soon as he identified himself as my solicitor, they promptly withdrew. Milla, in the meantime, had dashed from her half eaten breakfast, straight to her office and was onto both the police and the local council. Neither realm of officialdom was particularly forthcoming with any information until she told them the name of her Chambers and that she would issue writs against them for harassment.

The name and threat of legal action, whilst not producing immediate results, did elicit promises of return phone calls from higher placed officials. Milla gave a deadline of 10.30 for a response. Not that she really expected things to move that quickly, but she had found it best to use the stick rather than the carrot when dealing with bureaucracy.

David, meanwhile was arranging matters with me.

"We allow them into the house under my supervision, to check on the kids and the conditions they are living in..."

"Why should they get in at all?"

"Because then we can say they were given access. We limit the time they have by taking Harry and Georgie to school."

David went to the social workers car and told them that the children were getting their breakfast and would be going to school. He informed them that they could come in and check conditions in the home, which they did. Once more my habit of tidiness proved it's worth. Everything from the previous evening had been cleaned and tidied. Additionally, due to the hiatus of the weekend I had got a little behind in the laundry, so the not only were the children's rooms tidy but their beds had been stripped and fresh bedding laid out. The children were sitting to table, eating a breakfast of fruit, cereal, poached egg and toast, when the two women entered the kitchen. Harry and Georgie greeted them with a polite "Good morning." Once they had finished they excused themselves from the table and got their blazers and school bags as I cleared the table. Picking up the children's lunches I asked the social workers to leave and David escorted them to the front door. They were still sitting in their car as we both drove off.