I am very lucky with my work - very few archivists care for an archive housed in the same rooms and furniture designed for their storage in the late 14th Century.

Climbing towers and using old keys took a bit of getting used to but I quickly discovered that the archives were full of wonderful things - letters signed by Elizabeth I, Anglo-Saxon Charters and pieces of quill still lodged in the pages of volumes where the scribe had sharpened his pen. Later came the schoolboy archives - beautifully illustrated notions books and the hot rolls with all their clever humour.

Over the course of twenty years at Winchester College, I have learnt a great deal about our buildings, our estates, our traditions and our pupils - proof that archivists become more useful the longer they work with a collection! I think I have a fantastic job.