I have always been a collector. I blame my parents. As very small children my sisters and I would be taken on warm sunny afternoons to the beach we overlooked from our house in Devon. Hours would be spent sifting through the sand and debris hunting for shells, the prize of which was the cowry. Rare and elusive, not much bigger than my thumb nail, the exotic, whitelipped and pink-backed shell, sometimes dotted with brown spots and sometimes not, was the greatest treasure on the beach. Somewhere in the attic a boxful of cowries awaits my retirement when I shall use them to make shell pictures and decorate little wooden boxes. These I shall give to my grandchildren for Christmas who will give me a kiss then hide them in a cupboard with embarrassment: ‘Oh, it was just something Granny made.’

From then on I was addicted. I walked around with my eyes on the ground just in case I missed some treasure – an unusual stone, a rare wild flower, a pretty feather, a sixpenny bit; nothing was overlooked and I collected it all. Aged eight and we were living in Iraq. We went for walks on the edge of the desert and one day I picked up a crimson stone.