Where was the photograph of the untidy kitchen with the dilapidated furniture and ramshackle staircase I saw the other day? Was there really a housekeeper to tidy that house? Can you imagine Jeremy leaving his dormitory at Gresham's and coming home to that ho-hum timewarp?No wonder he hankered after the bright lights of London where he was born. We have no way of knowing how Jeremy was treated by his parents during the holidays,with June fragile at best as she busied herself with her charity work and Nevill the workaholic put his livelihood first. If they had let the children run riot it would have been far better in my opinion than to give them freedom tempered by judgemental comments which was June's way of letting them know that she was still firmly in control. This strategy failed upon June's admission to St. Andrew's in 1982 and Jeremy and Sheila took advantage of the vacuum. Yet June's trump card was to control the purse strings,yet finding it nigh on impossible to rein Jeremy in after his profligacy was unleashed. Sheila was more pliable due to her illness:she charred for Ann Eaton and obeyed her mother's wish to want to see her grandchildren that August at White House Farm..
Such a snob.

Steve,,however dilapidated and ramshackle a place is,,it was the home that Jeremy remembered while at Gresham,with it's stuffed-shirt ,stiff-collared atmosphere. He would probably have given anything to have swapped places and remained at home.
That part of the house looked to be more or less closed off upwards towards the back-stairs anyway,as the door leading up there was seemingly rickety,as were the stairs. All old houses have these sorts of areas.
As for allowing,or not allowing the children run riot as you put it,,there were the fields to play in and let off as much steam as they liked,so I would doubt there'd have been any restrictions there.
It's only natural that as you get older you want to escape the confines of playing tick and hide and seek,to want to explore what the outside world has to offer-----------that's no crime. It's part of growing up. Jeremy was a normal person,inquisitive and adventurous,thus his travelling bug.
He was finding his feet and showing independence,which is a good thing rather than relying on others to plan and map your life out for you. Even one,or both of his parents let him have a free rein in that respect to " get it out of his system " before he gets down to what his father wanted him to follow,which was farming,,and which he showed an interest 18 months before the tragedy. Neville had shown his pleasure when he spoke to Barbara Wilson about this very subject,,though in the months that followed,,it was plain to see that certain members of the extended family were less than happy about Jeremys' future on the farm as hostilities were more than evident.