IT is the extraordinary journey a brother and sister who went from one end of Britain to the other on their own to visit their granny in the Outer Hebrides when their usual summer holiday to visit her was cancelled.

With a sixpence and three farthings, a bag of stale buns, ration books, bathing suits and the clothes they were wearing, they decided to embark on what they saw as an adventure, without a single adult to supervise.

Now, 70 years after the Richardson children's escapade that has been compared to an Enid Blyton tale, they have relived the experience of travelling 800 miles from Hertfordshire in 1949 for the island of Lewis, and their idea of "paradise".

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The plan was hatched by schoolchildren Millie and Syd Richardson on August 12, 1949.

The Herald:

With the war slowly receding in people's minds, people were enjoying freedoms denied them during years of blackouts and air raid shelters.

Mr Richardson, now 80 said: [We weren't] keen on hanging around here. Hitchin? What's there to do. We wanted more of that adventure, definitely."

Leaving a hastily scribbled note behind - “going away camping for a few days” - they embarked on their journey to North Tolsta.

As Syd recalls of older sister Millie Bukojemsky : “We’d been there before and my big sister Millie was determined we’d go back. She led me astray – and I went happily!”

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Ms Bukojemsky, who now lives in Queensland, Australia recalled: "It was a nice place to live on the edge of the country, as kids we loved it. Climb trees, just walking, hiking and looking at rabbits. You could smell the peat smoke in the air, it was lovely. Grandma was always smiling.

The Herald:

"If we had a holiday, that's where we went."

Ms Bukojemsky, now 83, who describe her young self as a tomboy with a love of Enid Blyton books added: "I wanted to live there forever."

Without tickets they managed to take a ten hour train journey to Inverness.

"Not once did the ticket inspectors say to the assembled passengers, who is with this lad," recalled Mr Richardson.

After a ferry ride to Lewis, they were faced with a potential 16 mile walk to their gran's - and began asking locals the way to Tolsta.

But one charitable local woman would not have them walking, and helped them on the last leg of their journey with the bus fare money.

"She said, 'you're not walking all that way'. She went into her house, and she came out and gave us half a crown, two shillings and sixpence, enough for our fare," said Mr Richardson.

"She then stops a bus, the last bus from Stornoway into the village."

Ms Bukojemsky added: "Yeah, I think someone was watching over us, for sure."

Thirty hours after they ran away, the twosome finally arrived at their idea of heaven, their mother's native village of Tolsta.

The Herald:

The children were greeted by their gran and what Mr Richardson described as a "Cheshire cat smile". He added: "Everything was forgiven, brilliant."

Their antics were even rewarded with a three week stay - exactly what they wanted all along.

In Hitchin, anxious parents Sydney and Mary, were relieved to hear by telegram that the children were safe and sound with family.

But the story of their escaped would appear in newspapers across the country.

"That's when the fun started," said Ms Bukojemsky. Mr Richardson, a former journalist who now lives in the north of England added: "It was quite fascinating, the juxtaposition of important events in the world, and then these two children."

A new BBC Alba documentary Two Go to Tolsta, which will screen on Hogmanay, also hears from members of the community who recall the novelty of the English children arriving by themselves in the village, and piling in with the local youngsters for long days of fun down on the shore.

Ms Bukojemsky, whose last visit to Tolsta was in 1999, recalls: “It was so exciting for us. Milking the cows and fetching water from the well. My grandfather reading the Bible by the light of the tilly lamp. And swimming in that ice cold water! It was wild, and free, and magical.”

When the holiday was over they made the return journey to Hertfordshire, both fully ticketed and with a stuffed purse.

Islanders had showered them with pocket money, impressed by what they had pulled off.

The Herald:

In Ms Bukojemsky's words: "We were mini celebrities.

"We ended up with £20, which was a lot of money in those days and we never did use our sixpence and three farthings.

"But for me I didn't want it to be a holiday... I was going to stay there, I was going to live in Tolsta. I loved it. That didn't happen, we had to go back home.

"It is still home funnily enough now. We are Scots. From Tolsta."

The documentary comes with a warning to any like-minded children who might be audacious enough to give it a go now – “don’t even think about it!”