When my aunt Jenny KilBride was a teenager she delivered Meals on Wheels to the elderly in her village. One of her stops was to Bird Cottage. The women that lived there was a recluse - Jenny found her scary.

The owner of Bird Cottage was Len Howard. She had been a voila player but moved to Ditching in Sussex in 1938 and devoted her life to the study of local birds that she let roost and fly through her home.

Len started writing about the birds in her house and garden. In 1952 Collins published her book Birds as Individuals. In 1956 they published her second book Living with Birds.

The birds trusted her so much they would sit on her hand as she drew them.

Len (short for Gwendolen) died on 5 January 1973, at Bird Cottage, at the age of 79.

In 2016 a novel based on Len Howard's life and work, 'Het Vogelhuis', written by the Dutch author Eva Meijer, was published in the Netherlands, where it became a best-seller. @PushkinPress published the UK translation last year

There is a great piece written by its translator Antoinette Fawcett about Len here: http://www.letterenfonds.nl/en/entry/2584/on-a-single-sentence-from-eva-meijers-bird-cottage

Jenny told me about the book this week, and it prompted my brother to remember that with his friend Chris he had explored the derelict house after Len died. He said it was full of empty bird cages.