After looking online I discover they flower the second year, and they are an absolute bee magnet, I must have had all twenty-five bumble bee varieties and all our Walter's honey bees! 
The vicious prickles bring you out in an itchy rash, something else I had to google!
Now it's dying back I decided to collect some seeds, more googling! Blowed if I could find them, in the end I threw the prickly bits I was looking at down in disgust , lo, dozens of seeds on the floor!
You rub the dying bits into a tray (with big gloves on) and each calyx has four seeds, so you just spend a quiet hour picking them up!So it looks as if I may have viper's bugloss seeds to swap!
