She went to Cornwall House in London, site of the British Foreign Office library and asked the librarian, C.H. Fine, if any archival material from staff officers existed.
"He took me into a very dusty room and opened cabinets that had clearly not been cleaned for decades," she wrote. "Out fell, along with bound volumes packets of papers tied up in pink ribbon, which dropped on to the floor as well as envelopes of pictures covered in dust. "Oh dear," he said, "you had better have a look."
"That, she added, "was how I began as a researcher."
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Hidden treasure in dusty boxes again. Always the dust concealing the undiscovered gem. These documents turned Dr. Steiner into an expert on what happened in England between WWI and WWII. The end of the obituary quotes Dr. Steiner wondering how future historians will do their work in the age of Twitter and Facebook. Without the dockets and minutes and paper trail, how will anyone ever discover what really happened.
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