About Us

Richard and Fiona will be your hosts.   Our guests come from far and wide to the area for business, family occasions, and local sightseeing, or to learn English.  We believe in providing an individualised service and will do our best to cater to your needs. 

If you are on a Homestay English Course, Richard will be your teacher. His qualifications include the Certificate of English Teaching to Adults (CELTA) and BSc and PhD degrees. He has been teaching English since 2001, specializing in one to one teaching in his home, because he feels that this intensive style of learning a language with total immersion in the English culture produces the quickest and most lasting improvements.

A former student described him as ‘round and rosy with a stomach like a drum’, no coincidence because has also been described by one friend as ‘the best cook in East Hagbourne’, and by another as ‘having a talent for friendship’. He used to work as a senior manager and consultant in the mining industry, travelling extensively in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, the former Soviet Union and Australia. He has worked with many different national, ethnic and religious groups and has first hand experience of the difficulties of learning to communicate in a foreign language.

As well as teaching, he cooks commercially and for family and guests. He is passionate about food, wine, history and archaeology and writes novels when he makes time to do so.

Following a long career in the NHS ending as Head of Nursing at an Oxford hospital, Fiona now works as an advisor with a national neurological charity. She has been married to Richard since 1973 and is now also a little round and rosy from eating Richard’s food. Fiona loves to meet new people and particularly likes to chat to guests and with students in the evening about their day’s activities and to help them to organise their social or sightseeing programmes.