Taught By Mother

Mrs Moncrieff recalled that her mother had gained an unusual knowledge of old furniture by playing in the family attics as a child, and she had passed that knowledge on to the speaker.

Mrs Moncrieff said that she had gained an appreciation of old things by being taken early in life on expeditions to take monumental brass rubbings from the effigies on the tombs of knights of past centuries and their wives, and to Roman ruins to see coloured mosaics which had survived the centuries.

The speaker said that one of the unusual places she had been taken to was later proved to have been the site of a Phoenician colony in Britain. Other expeditions she had made had included regular visits to Westminster Abbey and other historic places in London.