GOOD historians often make exciting discoveries. But when Ruth Butler's researches uncovered details about Countess Rachel of Witley Court and her nursing background, especially her presidency of Kidderminster District Nurses' Society in 1912, she was ''over the moon''.

The countess, a great niece of Elizabeth Fry, is the embodiment of Ruth's major passions in life - the history of Witley Court and district nursing.

A nurse herself of 30 years experience, nine years in Kidderminster General Hospital casualty and latterly a Wyre Forest district nurse, 49-year-old Ruth seriously injured her neck in 1995 lifting a patient and had to give up practical nursing.

But this had its compensations. It was a chance to throw herself into history, dividing time between guide-work centred on the Victorian era at Witley Court and research into the history of district nursing in Wyre Forest.

She has just completed a paper on the latter as a mature student and is now considering trying for an Open University degree.

But Ruth is no book-bound historian. She throws herself into the subject the way an actor lives a part.

Her dress style in ordinary life reflects her liking for Victorian style clothes. But when she dresses for Witley Court visitors as Mrs Crabbe, 1914 housekeeper, or for a talk on Victorian life for church fetes or some other event, she tries to be authentic in every detail of her costume ''right down to the bloomers''. She likes Edwardian and Victorian furniture and enjoys a game of croquet.

Ruth talks easily and entertainingly about history because she enjoys the subject and is a practised communicator, used to addressing people on history at fetes and functions.

She was first inspired in 1993 when she visited a Victorian festival in Llandrindod Wells. She was a natural gift to the Poseidon Fountain Restoration Society of Witley Court and to the band of stewards that organise escorted tours.

June is a busy month with the next grand day of tours on June 19 and the English Heritage History Fair on the last weekend of the month but Ruth has been ''smitten'' with the job since she first visited the cellars seven years ago and joined the society.

From a Far Forest family, Ruth left school in Bewdley at 15 with little thought of university, despite a schoolgirl interest in history, because her father's suggestion of nursing ''lit a spark''.

She entered nursing as a cadet at Kidderminster General Hospital, then in Mill Street, and qualified in 1972, a year before marriage and motherhood. She has a son called Damien.

After district nursing she became a family doctor relief nurse. It was when the Church Street practice in Kidderminster put on an exhibition to celebrate 125 years she became inspired by nursing history.

History seemed to be waiting for her, however, and Ruth has launched herself into a career as busy as ever her previous life was.