Pastoral Sheet Music

Looking through one of the glossy magazines of this month, I am rather amazed at the prices quoted for old French sheets;  the first pair of sheets I ever bought were priced at 20 Francs each ( approx £2).  I bought them at that bargain price from a young lady with a shop near the Loire at Gien.  Her boyfriend had told her she would make much more money selling pancakes and told her to sell all the cheap brocante she had in her shop.   So I bought a lot and she then said I must buy her sheets.  I resisted and said I was not interested in being a 'linen lady'.  She insisted I bought them 'at a price you cannot resist' and I carried them home thinking they would make good dust sheets.  Later that summer my daughter's bedroon was lacking curtains to go with her new wallpaper, so I hung up the two sheets as temporary curtains.  She, and all her friends, thought them so up-market (pure linen! and so cool), that I suddenly realised they were perfect for the minimalist look and every next trip to France I loaded all I could find.  Then the film wardrobe people found my stores and bought every one for dressing Romans, Greeks, pirates, serfs and Elizabethan nobles as the weave was identical with the cloths that were used in ancient times.  Three years ago I had over 800 in store and now I have about 30 and soon they will all be gone.  I was lucky to be in at the beginning of the demand (and supply) of old rustic textiles and I am sad that it is now nearly finished -