Cindy Rella/The Old Soldiers with Buttons

In the front entrance of the castle, you both sit down and swap your slippers for boots. "Dick's gonna have his work cut out tidying this lot up," Buttons says, looking around at the overgrown jungle that used to be a garden. The once-grand entrance is now a narrow path and the wrought iron gates at the front sag on their hinges.

As you set off down the dusty main street (there are no pavements) a couple of women gossiping at their front gate call out a greeting. "Old soldiers day is it," one of them says. "I don't know what the Baron's thinking of, making you go down there every month," the other one says, cackling with laughter. Buttons turns and gives them a finger which makes them cackle even more.

The old soldiers live in a building that used to be three cottages. The Baron set it up years before to stop them begging on the street. The upstairs is divided into small bedrooms and it originally accommodated up to twenty men, but there are only eight left now. In spite of the dust and grime on the outside, the inside is immaculate. The front door opens into a kind of reception area was probably once somebody's front room and you both sit down and take your boots off before going into the big room where all the men are waiting for you.