[Verbena Daphne Brighton, who had eleven siblings,  grew up in ‘a funny old house, built in the late 17^thcentury, of wattle and daub… The thatched roof was owned solely and completely by sparrows’, p. 1] 

Finally we were all asleep, the leaves on the poplar trees rustled, the sparrows shuffled in the thatch, and mother cleaned out the grate ready for the morning singing to herself hymns that she had learnt at Tibenham Chapel.