(1) Smell – there must be absolutely no hint of chemical cleaning products, personal scent products or air fresheners. Permissible smells are pipe tobacco, old paper and honest toil.

(2) Dust – the outsides of the cabinets must be as dust free as possible but those employed to dust the cabinets must be careful never to dislodge, disturb or otherwise interfere with anything descriptive.

(3) Sound – total silence is preferable. Acceptable sounds are the filling and lighting of pipes, essential breathing and the taking of notes. Unacceptable sounds are chewing, talking, non-essential breathing, slamming doors or draws, moans of pleasure, air conditioning, telephones ringing and female voices.

Obviously the content of the written records archive is important too but some of us also enjoy the social side of written records archives.

But while I could pretend the silence was there to give me chance to do lots of fascinating reading, the cold could not be so easily ignored. I’d already buttoned myself up as far as I would go and the chill was still cutting through my layers of tweed like an intelligent person’s review of Matthew Jacobs’ so-called script. I needed to buy a couple of minutes to dash into the cloakroom and fetch one of my stout overcoats. Things were becoming desperate and desperate times call for desperate measures. I took a cassette tape from its secret hiding place behind the carriage clock and slid it into the cassette tape player. If there was one thing which might keep the hoodlums away for a couple of minutes it was some Keff McCulloch. I pressed play and ran from the noise as quickly as I could.

Oh the luxury to be in my own hall again. I stroked a couple of occasional tables and started putting things in my pockets at random. You never know what you might need later. From the cloakroom I took two large overcoats and some Wellington boots. It was as if I’d been given two minutes to rush around a supermarket taking things (if I’d won a competition or I was robbing a store that was two minutes drive from the police station). I was laden up but still snatching things when I realised my time was almost up. I threw myself into the drawing room just as the cassette tape stopped (it was "The Best of Keff McCuloch") and was able to grab my sofa and stop it being pulled out into the darkness.

I put on one of my reliable old overcoats and was idly patting the pockets when I found my old pipe and a box of matches. I hadn’t smoked a pipe for some years, ever since the price of tobacco started giving me palpitations in the tobacconist’s, but I still admired it as the sort of thing a gentleman ought to do. Cigarettes are vulgar, cigars are for when you’ve eaten so much you haven’t the strength to fill a pipe. I sucked my empty pipe wistfully and thought I might hang the expense and take it up again. If Francois Devine could afford to do it then so could I. I’d have to stop using alcohol-based lotion on my moustache of course but I could sacrifice the lustre it gives me if I had to. I’m not a vain man. I would’ve started smoking there and then had I any shag to hand. Then I had an idea.

I smashed a couple of chairs and began building a fire. Chance had given unto me a box of matches and that was clearly a sign I should take steps to ease my coldness. If I built it by the entrance to the hole it would ward off hoodlums too. I may have been wrong about evil not being able to face its own reflection but I’m pretty confident evil doesn’t like being set on fire. The chairs were all fine and dandy but I needed more fuel. Luckily I had a complete set of nineteenth century Encyclopaedia Britannica on my shelves which was of absolutely no use to me. They went on the fire. There were several letters from charities in my waste paper basket which were ideal for burning. Some children’s artwork which had been mistakenly sent to me by the special needs school because whoever wrote the label on the box had terrible handwriting was an obvious candidate for the fire. I went around the room picking things of no importance up and taking them over to my ever increasing bonfire.

"You’ll burn my house down" scolded the rather severe portrait of my Uncle Gaylord. "I won’t let you do it, young Dennis".

I lit a match and set light to my fire. It took hold quickly (all those years alone in the woods as part of my Beavers training had come in handy for only the second time). I turned to Uncle Gaylord.

"Firstly, no I won’t as I’m a responsible adult and think I can handle a bonfire in my drawing room. And secondly, you won’t be stopping me doing anything ever again."

I took the portrait from its temporary home propped up against the fireplace (which, with hindsight, was an unfortunate thing to have overlooked) and put it on the fire. I permitted myself a small smile as the flames began to eat away at his rather severe face.

"Dennis… I’ll get you for this… Dennis" roared Uncle Gaylord as his rather severe portrait disappeared beneath a cloud of acrid black smoke. I was smiling so much that my face was beginning to ache. Finally I was free of the rather severe portrait of my Uncle Gaylord. Finally. Why had I never thought of destroying the painting before?

"I’m FREE" cried Uncle Gaylord as his spectral form began rising from the flames. "Free to have vengeance upon my worthless nephew."