In the early part of the 18th century, Owen Parfit lived with his older sister in the small village of Shepton Mallet, 16 miles southwest of Bath,

in the rural county of Somerset, in the west of England.

Today, the population of this ancient parish is about 11,000, but back then the number of people

who lived there were far fewer. In his early life, Owen Parfit had been sent by his

father to apprentice as a tailor. Although he picked up the skills well, it was said that he did

not particularly enjoy tailoring, and one day he grew entirely tired of it, and enrolled in Her Majesty's

armed forces to become a soldier. He would go on to travel the world as a soldier, and on occasion his sister would receive a letter

or card from him in some foreign crimes.

Parfit spent many years as a serving soldier, and when he finally retired, his parents had

been long since dead.

He returned home to Shepton Mallet and moved

in with his sister, Mary, who was 15 years older than him. By now, they were both in their

twilight years, and Owen was suffering from rheumatism quite badly. His time in the army had taken

its toll on his health. His greatest pleasure was now to sit in the garden, surrounded by fields and woods, for miles around.

He would spend many days in the garden, often receiving visits from friends and neighbours in a friendly neighbourhood.

As the years passed, his rheumatism got progressively worse and he got to the point

that he could not walk at all without help anymore. His legs, feet and hands were all crippled,

which makes his sudden, unexplained vanishing, all the more strange. On the morning of a June day

in 1768, Mary, his sister, who by now was 80 years

old herself, had asked their neighbour, Susanna Snooker, to come and help her with Owen, as she usually

did each morning, to help him out of bed and into the chair in the garden, while they made his

bed and tidied his room.

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