‘Hoarding’ is my middle name

December 1963  

  5th June 2011                                                

I once had a neighbour who said “If I haven’t used it for 6 months, I don’t need it, so it can go in the bin”

Sadly this has never been my motto. I can lay my hands on a mini dress from 1973, a maxi dress from 1976 and  I still have a coat in my wardrobe which I bought aged 17 and if I tell you that this was 1963  you will realise that I probably have a problem!

Really I suppose I keep these for the memories they hold and these clothes along with my Grandma’s honeymoon nightie from 1924 (which is a hand sewn, cotton, up to the neck and down to the ground affair) is the least of my daughter’s worries.  Helen many a time has tried to chivvy me along to get rid of my hoardings, telling me that she doesn’t want all of this to clear out when I am pushing up the daisies…. Actually she didn’t say it so nicely, it was more “When you die ”

I have clothes in various sizes, waiting for me to be that size again… I used to have larger clothes from a time before I lost some weight but unfortunately I now fit the larger sized clothes and its smaller clothes, awaiting my shrinkage.

I have drawings and cards my children Helen and Richard have produced 30 yrs ago, cards my husband David has sent me.  A bag of old greetings cards a friend thought my be useful to my crafting,  (these really ought to go!),  a box of really old piano music which came from my mother-in law’s when she passed on in 1990 and then there’s the piano.

Perhaps this should to too. Will anyone ever play it again?  So far I haven’t showed Evie what it is. The lid stays shut. Perhaps when she is a bit older I will let her into the secret but at 27months old, I think her plink plonking would drive me mad!

I have things which I would never get rid of .  Old photographs (about 5 big toy boxes full),  tucked away in the back of the wardrobe. I have paintings done by a school day’s boyfriend, (who is actually now a famous illustrator and cartoonist,  so these certainly are not going anywhere).  I have love-letters from this time too which I haven’t looked at for years but they can go when I go!!

I have old cookery books too and old cookery implements (This may be another blog on another occasion!)

Books, childho0d games, a Fisher price garage, Star Wars paraphernalia, music cassettes, videos, old cutlery, 2 old printers, an old computer, an airing cupboard full of old towels and old bedding,  an exercise bike ( will I ever use it?,” You are joking!”)

It really should tell me something, when every cupboard in the house is bulging, every drawer filled to capacity and absolutely no space left in the wardrobe even though I always feel I have nothing to wear!

Why do I do it?  Why is it so hard to let go?

It must stem from the worry of not having enough, in case money became tight, although my childhood was reasonably affluent. My parents had a busy pub in Ripon, ‘The St Wilfrid’s Hotel’.  Ripon was a thriving garrison city and there was  plenty of custom in the pub, so when I was little I always had everything I needed.  I even had a pony (which I didn’t really want, but Dad wanted me to have one).

I have made a start on clearance. I have  clothes in a bag, in my car boot, supposedly on its way to a charity shop.

Its been there a month……

There is really no hope for me, is there?