Worked, played, and died together

relationship they were about to embark on.

After they married, they lived in Newton Mearns, where their elder

son, Roderick, was born. Their second son, Mark, was born in St Andrews.

The couple shared an enthusiasm for sailing and, in 1968, when the

boys were toddlers, they decided to leave Scotland, bound for the West

Indies.

Nicholas was from a wealthy background -- his father, Archibald

Newall, was a Scots industrialist -- and the couple had their own yacht.

The family stopped off at Jersey to pick up a nannie but, when she

became ill during the journey, they returned to the island and later

decided to settle there.

Nicholas taught at several schools on the island and Elizabeth was a

supply teacher. He retired from teaching at 52 because of a slight but

recurring viral infection.

He did not need to work. He was a Lloyd's underwriter and to become

that it is necessary to have a disposable income of #250,000.

To most people they seemed a happy, outgoing couple. He was a little

pompous, a little arrogant, but likeable.

They were a very close, some say ''self-absorbed'' pair. They played

tennis together, swam together, walked together. They appeared to love

each other to the exclusion of almost everything or anyone else, perhaps

even their sons.

Roderick and Mark went to school on Jersey for a year or so but, when

they were seven and six respectively, their parents packed them off to

boarding school. First they went to Lockers Park Preparatory School in

Hemel Hempstead then, as teenagers, they were moved to Radley College,

Oxfordshire.

The Newalls were not excessively wealthy but were comfortably well

off. After first living in St Brelade, they bought a house -- aptly

named the Crow's Nest -- perched on a hill overlooking the beach at

Greve de Lecq and out towards the island of Sark.

This was the family home for 15 years until, in 1987, the Newalls sold

it to Maureen and David Ellam. Their sons had moved away from home, so

they no longer needed the room and by this time they were feeling the

pinch.

The house they moved to was not luxurious, just an ordinary bungalow

with box-shaped bedrooms, set close beside neighbouring identical

bungalows.

Roderick and Mark led their own lives from a very early age. In

October 1983, Roderick joined the third battalion of the Royal Green

Jackets. He trained to be an officer at Sandhurst and successfully

obtained a commission.

In 1984, Mark joined investors Barclaytrust and by 1986 was training

to be a Eurobond dealer with an Arab bank. He was transferred to the

company's London office then later to Paris.

He soon amassed his own small fortune and was left in control of most

of his father's investments.

In 1987, the Newalls' financial situation seemed set to improve

dramatically. An aged Scottish uncle, Kenneth, living on the island of

Sark, had decided to make a pre-decease bequest to Nicholas and his twin

brother Stephen, a Glasgow-based engineer and businessman. The sum is

thought to have been #500,000, but it is not known if this was paid

before the couple's death.

Just weeks after the Newalls' disappearance, Kenneth Newall died of a

heart attack. Now Dr Stephen Newall, one-time chairman of Strathclyde

University Court, and Nancy Clark, Elizabeth Newall's sister, are in the

middle of a civil action contesting the inheritance received by the two

boys.

But Jersey police suspect that the money invested by Mark over the

years will never be found.