[1] Alford spent her summers observing dances in the Pyrenees, and her winters writing and researching at the University of Bristol and the British Museum.
She was secretary of the first International Folk Dance Festival, held in London in 1935 and chaired by musicologist Maud Karpeles.
[4] "She was especially concerned with the degenerative popular adaptation of traditional customs and media representation," wrote another folklorist, Paul Cowdell, of her strong interest in authenticity.
[5] Alford supervised the moving, cataloguing, and unpacking of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library during World War II.
At age 86, she traveled around the world, visiting New Zealand and Australia, and crossing through the Panama Canal.