After the brutal suppression of popular agitation in Prague in '68, the Samsons abandoned communism and moved from London to the West Country. When Samson was growing up, at first in Cornwall and later in Devon, her parents were respectable members of the community, a local newspaper editor and a village school headmistress. The only sign of previous activism was more political talk than in most homes and a house where neatness and matching curtains and cushions were not a priority.