So it's Christmas, and a bit of a weird one, so I want to tell you about a surprise Christmas present and the kindness of Twitter and total strangers on the other side of Europe that helped make it happen. 🎄🎄

Ten years ago, as relative newly weds, my wife and I had a lovely holiday in Croatia.

During that, we visited an amazing small museum (I do love a small museum): The Museum of Ancient Glass.

Amazing displays and THEY STILL MADE GLASSWARE THE OLD WAY!

We bought two glasses.

Thread time!

Meet Mary Burchell, one of the most successful romance writers EVER. Over 110 Mills & Boons to her name.

Got an image of her in your head now, right? Bin it.

Because Mary is a Righteous Gentile.

She wrote books to fund her efforts to help Jews escape Nazi Germany

Mary was born Ida Cook (and we'll call her 'Ida' from now on) in Sunderland in 1904. Her parents were an average middle class couple, and Ida and her sister Louise had a sheltered, happy upbringing mostly in London (their mother was a proper 'Bow Bells' cockney).

One thing their parents were very good about was just letting the girls be themselves.

As a result, by the 1920s Ida and Louise were both working in secretarial roles, happily living their own lives, but together. They would remain life-long companions.

Then, one day, Louise happened to go to a lecture on music at work.

IT

BLEW

HER

MIND

Their parents hadn't been musical, so this was a new world to her. Obviously she immediately wanted to share it with Ida.

They immediately bought a gramophone with Louise' bonus money.

Ida:

"Could any collector cast his mind back to the days when he accumulated his first two or three records and say that was honestly not one of the happiest times of his life?"

One of those records for them was this one. It HOOKED them on