When an airman gets on to an aircraft at Nairobi Airport to fly home for demobilisation, he has no idea of the background of his fellow passenger, wildlife photographer, 'Tigerface' Townsend. When Tigerface relates a story of a magical summer spent in the mountains of Wales whilst recuperating from a car crash as a teenager, the listener's credibility is strained to the utmost. The story is so compulsive, however, that he is constantly urging Tigerface to continue.
Could his companion really have met such an attractive but untouchable girl of his own age and spent a whole summer walking and swimming together in that remote valley whilst she taught him all about the local wildlife? Was it significant that they were both barefoot all the time?
When the aircraft experiences engine problems and is diverted to an unscheduled airport he is totally thrown by what he observes there. He never again meets Tigerface but, when he reads the photographer's obituary many years later, he finds he is inadvertently drawn back to the story he heard on that memorable flight and becomes personally involved in the consequences of that wonderful Barefoot Summer.
'Magical.' – Barbara Anne Knight.