According to Joseph Pearce, "Roy was proud that he and Mary had been accepted by the islanders, who did not normally take kindly to 'foreigners.' Yet if Roy and Mary were fascinated by the natives, the natives were more than fascinated by their exotic neighbors. They were still remembered more than half a century later by elderly villagers who still spoke of the notoriety that 'Africa' and his wife gained in the neighborhood. They wore flowing, brightly colored clothes and Roy's hair was far longer than local custom dictated. They also inflamed local gossip by regularly making love on the cliff-tops in broad daylight. Locals who visited Ty Corn returned to the village with reports that Roy and Mary covered the walls of their stable with charcoal sketches of each other in the nude. On one occasion, a local man, arriving at Ty Corn on some sort of business, was confronted at the door by Mary and her sister, both naked. In bashful confusion, he forgot what he was going to ask and went away in a state of shock."