1960s - When I was a small boy in Scrumpyshire on school holiday,
my mum was allowed to take me with her on one of her char woman jobs
in a big old local posh town house...
While the owners were away.
Even at that age I could tell the interiors very old world
like Hammer horror houses on the telly...

Running round the rooms was like entering a dark other world from long ago once upon a time.

One room contained nothing but big massive dark wood furniture,
every shelf and drawer displaying old glass topped display cases
full of orderly rows of butterflys, pinned through their bodies...
It seemed like there were thousands...
many recognisable from Ladybird books and Brooke Bond tea cards
my family encouraged me to study...

Funnily enough, that's what comes to mind when folks mention Cecil Sharp
collecting songs from where my family would have been living and working..
Not too far from from that big grand house,
and probably in the same time frame
that Butterfly collection was being so obsessively pinned down and catalogued...???