DURING the last stages of the good old horse-and-buggy days, there was one family growing up in Somerset which was the envy of most others. They were the clan of Spurgeon Phillips, his wife Inez and their 12 children.

Their home and playground was Willowbank, the six-and-a-half-acre estate developed by multi-millionaire American four-star General A.R. Clancy, who was also a director of General Motors Corporation. It is now a well known tourist resort and religious retreat.

Legend has it that there was some friendly rivalry between Clancy and fellow General Motors Director, C.S. Mott. During the 1930s Mott built his stately mansion Parapet on the southern side of Fort Scaur overlooking the Great Sound; and Glancy developed Willowbank with its commanding view of Ely's Harbour whose waters lap the other side of Fort Scaur.

In any case, in 1937 Spurgeon Phillips presented himself as just the man Glancy was looking for as his general caretaker. He couldn't possibly have landed a better job, because in 1939 when World War Two broke out, he yielded to the General's request that he and his family make the estate their home. They stayed there until 1961, one year after Glancy passed away. Most of the Phillips' seven boys and five girls were born there.

All the siblings grew up to be achievers in their own right, married and went their separate ways, here and abroad; some were prominent in business, while others distinguished themselves as customs and police officers.

A recent wedding was the occasion for a grand family reunion, that culminated in a big barbecue on the Willowbank Point. Absent of course were Spurgeon and Inez and three sons, Gladwin, Quinton and Neville, all of whom are deceased.

The acknowledged head of the family now is Lionel Phillips. He summed up life at Willowbank in one word, excellent. It was what their contemporaries considered the good life.

The family had everything beside money, he said, but then money wasn't everything. They had plenty of everything else, food, fruit and fish produced on the estate. They virtually lived in the water.

In fact, an accident overboard resulted in brother Quinton having had his leg amputated. In the aftermath General Glancy financed his education at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.

Meanwhile three other brothers became Dockyard apprentices; Gladwin qualified as a shipwright while Lionel and Neville became engine fitters, having gone to Portsmouth Dockyard in England to complete their training when the Bermuda dockyard closed down.