Mention of back stairs in old houses the other day reminded me of a tragi-comic incident years ago in Islay. The old manse had back stairs with the additonal oddity that they had a door at the top. Which was fine if you knew about it. 80 year-old visitor Mrs Tregunna was heading for the bathhroom, opened the wrong door and stepped into the void. Alerted by the slowly decelerating series of thuds we rushed to the scene. She was OK but a little bemused. The most immediately alarming thing were the loud wails of her husband who, reasonably enough, reckoned that she would not have survived the fall. That must have been some experience for the old lady as the brain hurriedly advanced draft hypothesis after draft hypothesis of explanation. Anyway, Dad made a virtue out of bolting the stable door by eliminating the stairwell, thus extending the bathroom on the upstairs and making a cute cupboard for the hoover below. Interestingly, this is the only domestic adaptation he made as a result of an accident. The many others (stories for another day)he just did for the hell of it.