Pottering about

"We like to live full lives - and the Holiday Property Bond helps us to do just that." - Janette Needham

Janette Needham and husband Adrian have been Bondholders since 2002. The couple, from Derbyshire, came across the Holiday Property Bond “by chance”, according to Janette. “Adrian was surfing the internet – quite a new phenomenon back then – and came across a reference to HPB. We were interested, but I don’t suppose we would have done much about it. However, I was a teacher then, and the head at my school turned out to be a keen Bondholder. He suggested we attend an Open Day, at nearby Blore Hall. We did – and loved the setting, the gardens, the tranquillity, the general ambience. That was all it took!”

The Needhams have wasted no time making full use of their investment. To date the couple – sometimes joined by one (or more) of their four grown-up children – have holidayed at Le Manoir du Hilguy in Brittany; El Pueblito de Alfaix in southern Spain; Henllys in Anglesey; St Brides Castle in Pembrokeshire (twice); Stigliano in Tuscany; Encosta Cabo Girão in Madeira; the Ivy House in Cumbria; Constant, in the Dordogne; Duloe Manor in Cornwall; El Balcón de Santa Ana in La Gomera, the Canary Islands; and Langton House in Dorset.

A particular favourite is Tigh Mor Trossachs in Perthshire, to which the Needhams returned in March for a third visit after a five-year absence – but, this time, only for a short break. A long way to travel, surely, for just a brief sojourn?

“Normally, yes,” agrees retired consulting civil engineer Adrian. “But combining it with a four-night stay at the Kings Arms in Askrigg, in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales, not only broke the journey but added an extra dimension to our week’s holiday.”

Along with the Ivy House in Cumbria, which lies a stone’s throw from HPB’s Braithwaite Court home, the Kings Arms is an HPB-owned hotel – where Bondholders can stay for any number of nights.

This flexibility makes HPB’s hotels ideal mid-journey stopping-off points – though, avers Janette, the Kings Arms is a whole lot more than that…

“We absolutely love the Dales – the pretty stone walls, the Fells, and Askrigg [where the Kings Arms is located] is such a friendly village. But I must declare a personal interest. My career – which has followed an unconventional path, from working with Scottish Opera to teaching, but always with an artistic bent – has led me to establish a business (of sorts) in pottery. Askrigg is home and HQ to esteemed potter and ceramicist Andrew Hague; so it was a pilgrimage, of sorts.”

I’ll admit, we were chary about HPB at first,” says Adrian. “All those horror stories about timeshare… But once we’d established what the Holiday Property Bond was about (and it definitely wasn’t that!) the positives quickly outweighed the negatives. We love it; as a couple – as a family – we’ve always sought variety, and the Holiday Property Bond gives us that, in spades. But there’s always that standard to fall back on; you know you’re going to be comfortable, everything’s going to work. Holidays can be looked forward to with excitement, rather than trepidation. In fact, you could argue that the holiday starts from the minute we make the booking; which makes HPB even better value!”