This was the fourth time that Brenda and Malcolm had taken a holiday together in Cornwall. On this occasion they took their tent to a camping site at Trenant near Polzeath. On the first evening they took a short walk but unfortunately Brenda slipped into a rabbit hole. She was a few months pregnant and the fall caused her to miscarry later that night. Malcolm had to call an ambulance and Brenda was kept in hospital in Truro for a few days. She found her treatment unsettling as it seemed that the nurses thought the loss of her baby was deliberate. Malcolm buried the foetus on Rumps Point under a stone which he inscribed The child of Brenda and Malcolm.

Malcolm remained on the campsite and took a long walk along the coast path each day, taking photographs as he went, then visited Brenda in the afternoons. In the evenings, he visited a local pub with another lad who was also camping.