Swan Vestas.

A few weeks ago we purchased these tiles; while there, Mrs TD thought that I ought to purchase the right tools for the job oblivious to the fact that I had done tiling before and already had them. We compromised, I ended up with a tiler's trowel (though I would call it a float) and, instead of the little cross shaped tile spacers, a box of matches. The idea of the matches is that you pop them in between the tiles to space them evenly, with their heads poking, out as you stick the tiles up. When you start the second row, the first has set well enough not to need spacing any more so you pull the old matches out as you need them for the new tiles. When you've finished, you put the matches back in the box. It happened that only three matches were unusable after the exercise so, since we don't normally use them, we have one very slightly soiled box for sale.

Although the logo on the match box has gone through many transmogrifications since it was first used, it is derived from a picture by the early bird photographer, Eric Hosking (1909-1991). In his early career, he lost an eye when the tawny owl he was photographing attacked him; after recovering he, of course, returned to complete his assignment and bore no malice towards the bird. His autobiography was, naturally enough, called "An Eye for a Bird."

It is difficult to realise the difficulties he faced, particularly in his early years, using monochrome glass plates and all that that entailed. Photographic emulsions had the equivalent ISO rating of 10, it took minutes to change the plate in between each photograph, there was no automatic exposure or even a meter, in fact no automatic anything. You couldn't even refocus between uncovering the plate and opening the shutter. Things were really cushy when I started photography less than thirty years after Eric did. I could use 400 ISO roll film by then and bought a plastic exposure calculator for five shillings from Boots (though I quickly learned how to do the mental arithmetic).

Eric received many accolades from both natural history and photographic organisations as well as an OBE, his youngest son David continues his father's business.