One non-job-related move was in London, where they decided to leave their home in Camberwell after Arabella Stagg was mugged.They are now living outside Grantham They hope to make this house the family base. Dickie Stagg is in the Foreign Office, which means postings every four years: life has moved backwards and forwards between The Hague, London and Brussels, with a couple of voluntary moves thrown in. How do they do it, as Desmond Lynam might ask.With cheery determination, would seem to be the answer. It would not be quite so extraordinary if they were a small family, but there are two parents, four children, three dogs, assorted horses and a few chickens.

They will stay in the neighbourhood, close to their friends and families.Ford House is being sold by Knight Frank & Rutley in Exeter (01392 423111) for pounds 435,000.The RootlessThe Staggs have moved 10 times in 13 years. “It’s very disruptive.”Major and Mrs Dixon are now selling Ford House because it has become too much for them. “If you move they have to make new friends and start new schools,” says Mrs Dixon. Now she and her brother, aged 39 and 41 respectively, live with their own families quite close by. They come “home” as often as possible for the weekend with their own children.The Dixons feel it is important for families to put down roots They think it gives children, in particular, more stability.

“I spent a lot of my summer holidays with an aunt, riding on Dartmoor and sailing at Plymouth.” She wanted her children, Jeremy and Caroline, to grow up with the same pleasures.Their listed Georgian house sits in 11 acres of grounds, with lawns running down to a river. There are little wooden bridges and pools stocked with brown trout. Inside the walled garden there is a swimming-pool and tennis court as well as a vegetable garden.Though the Dixons’ daughter left for the city life of parties and playing in bands, she always came back to Ford House. They decided on Somerset for two reasons: for Major Dixon it was “as near the North as you can get in the South”; for Mrs Dixon it was a place of fond childhood memories. Major Dixon had left the armed forces and was working as a translator, which he could do from anywhere He was originally from Teesdale, his wife from Kent.