The heavens opened.

And duty called, even on a Sunday. For school, a display on the Victorians, ready for a public event on Monday evening, was necessary. And I needed Victorian artefacts.

I trawled the sources of Victorian wooden toys in my mind and decided wistfully that a trip into our local market town was going to be a must. I must make a wet, crowded, expensive drive, alone because everyone else in the house had colds.

I braced myself. I got in the car. And I turned the ignition key, backed out of the drive and got on the road.

I found a parking place in a great shopping cathedral and scuttled off through the fat drops of rain to the museum, a worthy red-brick building. I walked through the doors into a museum which, with the gloom outside, looked as if the caretaker had already turned half the…