THEY came charging down the path to meet me, a slim teenager with a toothy grin, and, perched high on his shoulder, a toddler with springy blonde curls, squealing with delight.
    Joan Noone, a motherly redhead, followed more slowly, her youngest baby in her arms.
    It was an unpretentious road on an ordinary estate a few miles outside Liverpool. The only thing that marked the semi-detatched house from its neighbours was the sleek Jaguar parked outside, filling half the roadway. But taxi-drivers never have to be told the address, and there's often a small knot of teenagers gathered at the gate, hoping to catch a glimpse of the occupants.
    For the Noones are no ordinary family. Nineteen year old Peter, better known as Herman, beat the Beatles by becoming America's top pop star last year. His two year old sister, Suzanne is already a successful model, with three bank accounts and an eighteen-month film contract. And their parents, Joan and Denis, have already refused offers for baby Louise to advertise baby foods.
    "We were just settling down for a quiet middle-age when all this hit us," smiled thirty-nine year old Joan, trying with her free hand to clear a space to sit among the toys.
    "I worked as a company secretary and my husband was an accountant. Our two children were old enough to stand on their own feet. There were no surprises. We always knew that tomorrow would be just the same as today."
    But that was three years ago. Since then they have started a new family, travelled the world and got used to the most expensive hotels, given up their jobs, and are hoping one day to make their first venture into the hotel business, which has always been their ambition.
    It's not easy to hold a connected conversation in the Noone house these days. The phone rings incessantly, the doorbell often. Someone is always just arriving or just about to leave. But Joan managed to cope with it all, and still stay good-tempered at the end of the day.
    "This is the way Peter lives, and we must either share it or back out of it," she told me simply. "We decided from the first that we'd rather share it."
    The name of one or other of her children is seldom off Joan's lips for long. She is the sort of warm-hearted woman who will always be at her best in the middle of a large, demanding family.
    She's not embarrassed about showing pride in her children, and if you like them, she likes you. But she is not only proud that Peter, at nineteen, can buy his parents anything they want, or that Suzanne, in her tiny mink coat or the pale blue leather outfit designed by a London couturier, is the centre of attention wherever she goes.
    She was even more eager to tell me how her eldest daughter denise had coped with the family, as well as her own husband and baby, while Joan was in hospital, and how many hours of his precious spare time Peter spends teaching Suzanne to make mud pies in the garden.
    Suzanne calls him "luvly-luvly" Herman, and her favourite toy is still the huge stuffed dog he brought back from his first trip to America.
    "Isn't she something?" Peter asked me, dodging a slap from a tiny fist while Suzanne, delighted that we were talking about her, bounced excitedly on his knee.
    "one day I'll have a big family of my own, but that's a long way off yet. I'd never marry while I was a pop singer, because it wouldn't be fair to a girl - the fans can give her an awful time.
    "Anyway, for now I spend as much time as I can with my little sisters. Mind you, I'd love a brother. We could kick around together, and I'd teach him to fight and play football."
    But Peter will get his brother eventually - that's a promise from his parents.
    Joan explained: "Two years ago, when I found I was having Suzanne I was embarrassed to tell Peter and Denise that I was pregnant - but they were thrilled. Peter so wanted it to be a boy, and it was then I realized how much he was longing for a brother.
    "But when Louise arrived in May, Peter flew over from America specially to see me in hospital - to tell me that so long as I was all right, he didn't mind whether it was a brother or sister.
    "Of course, it means that now we're fortyish we're surrounded by as many toys and nappies as when we were twenty. But we've found we love every minute of our new life.
    "I've been told I can have six children if I like, and if it takes that long for a boy to come along, I probably shall. After all, we don't have to worry about the financial side of it any more, and the bigger the family we have, the better we'll all be pleased."
    Peter is a quietly-spoken youngster with a friendly, open face, and it's easy to see why American teenagers swoon over him as the typical English boy-next-door. And, when he has a chance to spend time with the family, that's exactly what he is.
    While his friends are out on the town Peter is usually stretched shoeless in his rocking chair, watching television, or playing a quiet game of dominoes with the locals in the pub.
    "I feel a different person when I'm at home," confessed Peter, as he handed out cups of tea he had just made. "When you're travelling with a group you're shut off in a little world of your own. There are people organizing everything for you, and if you want anything you have only to snap your fingers.
    "At home I say I want something, and I'm quickly told where to find it! It pulls my life back into shape, being just one of the family again."
    Nowadays Joan and Denis can smile when they remember their first dismay over Peter's pop-singing.
    "He was doing so well at grammar school," Joan explained. "We'd set our hearts on him becoming a doctor.
    "But he wasn't thirteen when he hitch-hiked to London and earned himself a part in a Judy Garland film. In the end we had to turn it down because it involved nine months in Greece. We could only hope he wouldn't hold it against us later.
    "But after that he went to drama classes, and got his first television part because he looked so young. Later he appeared in series like Coronation Street and Knight Errant, but by then the school authorities were getting restive. It was quite a strict school - short haircuts and definitely no jeans."
    But before he had made up his mind whether he wanted a full-time acting career, Peter had started singing with a youth club group, then called the Heartbeats, later to become the Hermits. He was only sixteen, and still living in a world of G.C.E. examinations when they were "discovered" by a record manager, and their first record I'm Into Something Good went right to the top of the hit parade.
    "What could we say?" Joan shrugged. "We couldn't possibly take this second chance away from him. But I still wasn't happy about it, however successful he seemed to be. I used to lie awake worrying about whether he would be able to make a living singing."
    She needn't have worried. Now Peter has a million-dollar film contract and his group have sold over 15,000,000 records. It seems a far cry from the days when his mother 		bought him an echo chamber out of the housekeeping and Denise drew out all her savings for his microphone.
    But as success followed success there was still one small, nagging worry on Joan's mind. Would fame spoil Peter, as it had spoilt so many other young stars?
    The answer seemed fairly plain as I watched Peter, regardless of his expensive looking slacks, rolling happily on the floor with the children.
    "He's never been a bit big-headed or selfish," Joan told me. "In the early days of the group we bought a caravan for the boys to use when they were on holiday. We called it 'Herman,' but as soon as Peter saw it he changed the name to 'Herman's Hermitage.' He didn't want the others to feel left out.
    "And now, if any fan scratches 'I love Herman' on his new Jaguar he just shrugs and say that but for girls like her he wouldn't have been able to buy the car anyway.
    "When I was in hospital having Louise someone sent me a scrapbook full of American cuttings about Peter. It turned out to be one of the best presents I've ever had. There was an article about Herman's loves and hates and it started off with the statement 'I love my parents.'"
    "Honestly, I cried when I saw it. I mean, we know he loves us, but I think it's wonderful that an eighteen year old boy should want to say that in public, so that the whole world knows about it."
    When Suzanne's turn came, the Noones learnt their lesson. This time they didn't protest - but it was Peter who was wary.
    Suzanne was only eighteen months old when she had some publicity pictures taken with Peter - as the perfect girlfriend who wouldn't upset his image with the teenagers. Straight away modelling offers poured in, and Suzanne's career had begun.
    "Photographers would come up here, bringing racks of clothes so that she could choose what she wanted to wear," said Joan. "She loves dressing up and thought it was all a game.
    "Later on, when she got used to it all, we started flying to London every week for a photographic session.
    "Peter was worried at first. He thought she should be old enough to decide what she wants to do before she's allowed to do it.
    "But Denis and I talked it all over and decided to solve the problem by asking Peter to act as a sort of unofficial manager for her, so that he could keep an eye on any offer that was made. He knows more about the world of agents and big offers than we do, so it puts our minds at rest, and it means Peter can make sure she's only doing what she enjoys.
    "He's determined that nothing should interfere with her first year at school, because he thinks the first time a child finds herself with thirty-five other children is all important. Otherwise he just wants to see she has everything she wants."
    So far it all seems to suit Suzanne very well. She loves showing off the contents of her wardrobe to visitors, and at the last count she had a hundred dresses, sixty pairs of shoes, and forty-two pairs of frilly panties.
    "She gets far too much of her own way, I'm afraid," said Joan ruefully, as we watched her prancing about with an armful of pretty dresses. "L know I'm a bit soft with my children. I'd do anything rather than hear them cry.
    "But Peter and Denise admit they were thoroughly spoilt when they were young. And if Suzanne turns out anything like those two, I shan't be complaining."
    As for the money she earns, that all goes straight into the bank. Joan and Denis admit they have never bothered to count it - and Suzanne is much too young to do so.
    When Peter took the family to America last year, to watch the making of his first film "Hold On", Suzanne was in great demand for modelling sessions at three hundred dollars an hour, and she didn't take long to get used to the high life.
    "She went to all the smartest restaurants with us," said Joan. "She likes all the most expensive things, too, like huge prawns and fresh salmon.
    "We had a chauffeur-driven Cadillac to take us to and from the film studios, but Suzanne commandeered it. She persuaded the cahuffeur to drive her up and down Sunset Boulevard for hours on end. Every time he stopped she would cling round his neck and say 'Again!' and off theyw ould go once more.
    "Everyone on the film set fell in love with her, and they let her run about just as she liked."
    Suzanne was such a hit with the film company that she soon had her own eighteen-month film contract.
    "They called her the new Shirley Temple, which I suppose is the biggest compliment you can pay a child over there," said Joan. "Funnily enough, while we were there in America we saw an old Shirley Temple film on television. Suzane pointed to her dancing and said: 'That's Susie.' She really thought it was.
    "She gets piles of fan-mail, thought she can't read any of it, and on her second birthday so many presents and cards arrived from America that the Post Office had to make a special delivery."
    Just then we were interrupted - not for the first time - by a phone call, telling Joan that a hundred and fifty pounds' worth of clothes were ready for delivery.
    "I just can't get used to spending money like this," she said as she hurried back from the phone, looking pink and delighted. "It seems like someone else ordering all these lovely things, not me at all.
    "You know, when we were in Hollywood last year we stayed at the Beverly Hilton, and I used to see Denis giving the waiters thirty-shilling tips. It worried me stiff.
    "Peter was always saying: 'Don't worry, Mum. If you don't have the money, the tax man will.' But it still didn't seem right to me."
    I was curious to know when Joan felt most proud of Peter - when his disc was top of the hit parade, when he got his film contract, or when he came top of the U.S. popularity poll last year.
    But Jon hardly let me get the question out before she had the answer ready.
    "When he was named as one of Britain's ten best dressed men last year," she told me happily. "Anybody can be a pop singer. But royalty can win those awards, and my son won one. That made me feel terrific."
    Almost as soon as her last baby was born, Joan had offers for the youngest Noone to appear on packets of baby foods. But she quickly turned it down.
    "Giving children the chance of a good career is one thing," she said firmly. "But this would be just making money, and I'm not having that. But if, when she's older, Louise does want to go into show business as well, the Noones look like being Somebodies for a long time to come."
    As I got ready to leave, the family scene dissolved into chaos once more. The engine of Peter's Jaguar purred into life as he set off for a business conference in Manchester. Suzanne, hearing her brother leaving, appeared tearfully at the kitchen door, her velvet dress, face and hands covered in flour. The baby awoke and insistently demanded food. The telephone began to ring.
    I slipped out with Denise, who was going back to her own much more peaceful house to get her husband's tea. It would be quite a while before the Noones noticed I had gone.