Country House Rescue

Ruth visits Trereife House in Penzance, Cornwall. It's a crumbling manor that is making a loss - with the bank close to forcing a sale.

Tim Le Grice inherited Trereife House and its huge debts in 1986, and has spent the past 25 years trying to turn around the fortunes of the family home. But Trereife is a house in peril, falling apart at the seams. And while holding down a full time job as a solicitor, Tim has been working 15 hours a day trying new business ventures to give them a much needed cash injection. The house is making a loss.

Tim and his wife Liz's two children, student trainee Peter and literary agent Georgina, are keen to take over the running of their beloved home to stop Tim from putting his health at stake, but their father is reluctant to let go and doesn't want to pass the burden of the home on to the children.

Ruth steps in and soon discovers that part of the problem is Tim's misguided business ideas - a failed zoo, a gypsy caravan theme park, a restaurant and a dairy farm. Ignoring his family's pleas for rationality, Tim has ploughed on with his ill-advised projects bringing them to the brink of bankruptcy.

With Trereife's potential for becoming a B & B, and space outdoors for Mongolian dome tents, Ruth is concerned that neither Tim nor Liz have the time or the energy to take on the work load. Twenty-five-year old Georgina is the possible solution, but she is torn between her love of the house and her love of her career in London.

Ruth asks Georgina to organise a literary and poetry event, as well as inviting guests to stay in their two refurbished bedrooms and a newly erected geo-tent in the garden, with Tim under strict instructions to stay away.

With the event a success and only a slight mishap with the overnight guests - involving Tim locking them out in the rain - it appears Georgina has proved her worth.

But will Tim relinquish control and give his keen daughter a chance?