Stephen Grendon

After being chosen to play a young Laurie Lee in the 1975 television movie of _Cider With Rosie (1975) (TV)_ whilst still at school, aged 6, Stephen Grendon's acting career was short-lived. After attending Thomas Keble School in Stroud and achieving seven O' levels, he found occasional work as a gardener and took on many odd jobs around his local area. He developed a peripatetic lifestyle whilst on a trip around Europe and hitch-hiked through France, where he learned to speak the language fluently. He occasionally returned to France for some months each year to work as a fruit picker. This traveller's lifestyle eventually led to him joining a group of New Age travellers in Gloucestershire and whilst studying at Penshore College of Agriculture he lived in the grounds of the college under a tarpaulin. It was 30 years after his starring role that he made national headlines again. In 1994 he bought a tract of land in woods near Brimpsfield Common in Gloucestershire, England, and two years later, after the breakdown of his marriage, he began to live in a small storage shed, originally intended for use as a gardener's store for nearby allotments. He lived in this 4.25 metre by 5.8 metre woodland shelter with a wooden veranda, a sleeping platform at one and and a sofa at the other, with no running water, bathroom, toilet or television, which he named "Hermit's Corner", from 1994 to 2006. It was then he made national headlines when he received a notice of eviction from the local council telling him that the building did not have planning permission as a residential building. After taking the case to the the High Court they ruled that his makeshift home for almost ten years is not officially a "dwelling house" by law, and he, therefore, would be evicted. Having often suffered from bouts of depression and suffering with mental health problems he says "he values the simplicity of his unconventional lifestyle" in his Cotswold Valley home.