In my grandparents front parlour there hung a portrait of my great-grandfather, Harry Worsfold. His tales of old Surrey together with its ghosts and superstitions enthralled me. Close by lay the great family Bible. In this he entered the birth of each of his twelve children. Later he added their marriages and the arrival of his numerous grandchildren. Harry was born in 1839, when Queen Victoria was but a girl. As a boy he witnessed a public hanging, threw stones at passing coaches and tolled the church bell for the Duke of Wellington s funeral. At ten years of age he became buttons to Ripley...