"My involvement really started about 18 months before we found out about LHI, in what’s known as Coldharbour Mill at Uffculme in Devon, where I’m a guide. I spoke to local people to find out a few things about the Mill, and realised that all this first hand information was likely to be lost when these people died off. At the end of the day no-one would know how yarn was twisted, how wool was obtained, and cloth was woven here.

So I persuaded the Friends of Coldharbour Mill to buy me a recorder about five years ago. Then I met John Burgess, an ex-BBC man who suggested that it would also be a good idea to record local people in Wellington, because it was highly industrialised considering it is such a small place.

There were four key industries that were very profitable concerns - a very large woollen weaver, a bed maker (Price Brothers, now Relyon), a brickworks (William Thomas, just outside Wellington), and Aerosols International, a biochemists who started off as William Gregory in the early 1800s. There’s also a small cider factory.

My colleague and I had vaguely heard that there was funding available, and we found LHI on the Internet. I downloaded the information and worked from there.

For us, it wasn't a straightforward process to apply for the grant. I think we were slightly naive. We allowed very little - about £200 - for office expenses, which wasn't enough, and we didn’t put down anything for transport costs.

Another problem was that money had to be allocated to particular categories, and if you spent more or less you had to ask permission to change the amounts, and that could take up a lot of time."