In 1964, Margaret Leonard's auntie Anne gave her niece, who was about to start university, a breakfast set in the then popular Indian Tree pattern. 1966, Margaret took a job with the Readers Digest and the paths of crockery and friendship crossed!

Margaret's friendship with Charles West began when he wrote a letter to the Readers Digest. His letter was of the nice type, gently refusing a current offer, and didn't really require an answer. But Margaret, whose job it was then to deal with such correspondence, thought otherwise, "He was 87," she explained, "As he'd taken the trouble to write, he was probably quite lonely - it would be nice for him to have an answer." She was about to leave the Readers Digest, so took the letter home and replied from there. Charles noticed her Camberwell address. It instantly brought old memories to mind, and he wrote again to Margaret about his work as a boy clerk in the War Office during the Boer War. Margaret was fascinated by his memories and wrote again to tell him so.

It was about this time that Margaret was planning to leave London to live with her father in Stockport. Shortly before she was due to head north, and the day before she'd arranged to meet up for the first time with Charles West, her Camberwell bedsit sprang a leak and a plumber was called in, "He was careless and knocked my lovely teapot from my Auntie Anne, chipping the spout." The plumber though it was hilarious. To Margaret, it was very upsetting - this wasn't any old teapot, it was part of one of her most cherished possessions.

The next day, Margaret went to visit Charles. They got on well, and as Charles made tea, Margaret remembered the plumber's rough handling of her precious teapot. She told Charles what had happened, "He just opened a cupboard door," said Margaret, "and asked, 'Was it like this one?' There on the shelf of an otherwise bare cupboard was the twin of my teapot." It was the only remaining piece of a breakfast set, identical to Auntie Anne's, that Charles had bought for his wife.

Until Charles died in 1969, hit by a car as he crossed the road, he and Margaret wrote to each other regularly. Each time Margaret mentioned a place, Charles had been there or worked there and had a story or anecdote about it. In 1902 he'd even lived in Stockport, just round the corner from Margaret's father, who was five at the time.

Margaret still has the one hundred-and-ninety cards and letters from her friend, a record not just of their relationship but of a world long-gone - Charles was born in 1879 when Liszt, Brahms and Tchaikovsky were still alive; before even the combustion engine was invented.