Frank Sinatra is singing Come Fly with Me and a Norman Hartnell-designed pink chiffon and diamante evening dress is twinkling in the corner of the room. The walls are pink, there is a pink parasol hanging on the wall and blue-carpeted stairs leading to what looks like a living shrine. This is The Pink Room, and it is unknown territory.

Sinatra is cut off in his prime, which jolts the senses since being bombarded with love songs sits perfectly with what is about to hit the senses. Just as my eye is drawn to what appear to be chiffon wings on the aforementioned Hartnell creation, the music ends and Dame Barbara Cartland, Britain's foremost romantic novelist, is recalling the jolly, carefree days of her life as a debutante in London society.

The voice sounds close to hand. Fooled into thinking that any minute now she will appear, in a manner befitting her reputation, from behind a cloud of pink smoke I fear I am about to be chastised for not wearing a dress. Instead, we must make do with a disjointed tape recording that jumps from one pink and fluffy description of her life to another, which is nonetheless comforting because in a romantic novelist kind of way it is what one would expect from Dame Barbara.

"She really is a wonderful woman. She has had a wonderful career and people don't seem to realise that. In fact she started the first airmail glider service in Britain, and she writes a chapter of her latest book every afternoon and a whole book every fortnight," says Mr Eric St John-Foti (72), longtime friend of Dame Barbara's and creator of The Pink Room - "a joyous tribute to Dame Barbara Cartland" - which is tucked away in the outbuilding of a large farmhouse in Norfolk.

The Pink Room is indeed something to behold. If the truth is told, however, The Pink Room is actually a large Pink corner. But never let it be said that size matters, it's what's in it that counts, and in commercial terms a large corner is never going to attract the paying guests like a room can. Not wishing to split hairs, and with a Noel Coward tune extolling the virtues of the high life, a display of a dozen of Dame Barbara's 600 book covers beckons. Pictures of square-jawed heroes and damsels in distress (what else?) bring Mr St John-Foti to the question of Dame Barbara's somewhat strident moral code. "The other day one of the visitors here said the Queen Mother and Dame Barbara Cartland were great British institutions and I think they're right. Someone like Dame Barbara is important. You have the excesses of the modern society on one side and Dame Barbara on the other," explains Mr St John-Foti.

Criticising Dame Barbara isn't very nice and she's really quite a gem, says Mr St John-Foti. And after all she's 97, her eyesight isn't up to much and neither is her hearing, so shouldn't we all just be nice? Love is what makes Dame Barbara's world turn on its axis, sex is a taboo subject, and she never tires of telling the real world to clean up its act.

Mr St John-Foti is something of a Mills and Boon charmer himself. He is unerringly polite, and carefully explains the facts of his heroine's life as if he had lived it himself. During his life he has been a ventriloquist, a photographer and, in retirement, the creator of the herbal drink, Norfolk Punch, which I have been warned is an acquired taste.

Joined by his Irish wolfhound, Buster, which looks more like a small donkey than a seven-month-old dog, we take a quick look at the other exhibitions contained in his outbuildings. Mr St John-Foti has even built a small chapel, complete with an altar rescued from a London church and brought to East Anglia for safekeeping during the second World War.

There are also rooms dedicated to Nelson, Christmas past and present and Dickens. "It's all about time. If you go back a hundred years it's Christmas. Or it can be whatever you want. Barbara Cartland transcends time and I wanted to do this as a tribute to her because she is such a wonderful woman," Mr St John-Foti says.

Back in The Pink Room, beside photographs of the novelist as a young woman is a plaque commemorating the marriage of Prince Charles to Diana Spencer. Of course Dame Barbara was Diana's step-grandmother, so its inclusion is touching. Despite its Union flag it looks a little sad stuck in the corner and it makes one wonder what Diana's museum will look like when it is opened in the summer. Ah, now there's a thought . . .

The Collectors' World of Eric St John- Foti, Hermitage Hall, Downham Market, Norfolk, PE 38 OAU, 0044 1366 383185