[3] Her true interests however, lay outside teaching, and seeing a staff vacancy advertised at the Cambridge and County Folk Museum in 1947, she applied and was appointed Assistant Curator in September of that year.

The museum grew out of the 1934 ‘Festival of Olden Times’ hosted by the Cambridge Guildhall and organised by Catherine Parsons, the then chair of the Cambridgeshire Women's Institute.

The original aim of the museum was ‘to collect and preserve for the benefit of the general public and for the purposes of education, objects of local interest and common use’.

These notebooks contained copies of historical documents, newspaper articles and trade directories that she used to track movements of individuals, businesses and buildings.

Porter's notebooks are also home to accounts of numerous encounters with people she met during her professional life, detailing certain folk customs and superstitions and song lyrics.

She gave talks about local history to all sorts of groups and published articles in Cambridgeshire, Huntingdon & Peterborough Life magazine.

Porter never missed an opportunity, and even took note of conversations she held when she was in hospital for her own health, sharing stories and anecdotes with other patients nearby.