I am having a clear-out – and I am being ruthless. Well, ruthless-ish. I’ve chucked out a lot of junk. I’ve also kept hold of a lot of junk. Heart has sometimes overruled head and I’ve got rid of some fairly useful stuff that would definitely come in handy one day, in order to have space for a load of utterly useless rubbish that will never have a purpose, but which does however conjure up a memory or have a sentimental connection of some kind. So: pile of books that I like and may possibly want to read again some day is out, but chewed board book that used to make a noise like a car horn when you pressed a button but doesn’t any more and is barely recognisable as a book and will never be read again is in, because it’s one the boys and I read together seventeen thousand times when they were little.
ILLUSTRATION: BEN MORRIS
Things aren’t always just things. Sometimes they hold something else inside them; something of you, something of the past, something of someone you care about. All of Doctor Who is now available on DVD, but there’s still nostalgia for that seventh-generation VHS copy of an Australian broadcast where you knew every hissy word and picture break-up, or that audio you recorded with your tape recorder next to the telly, complete with clunks and clicks and someone talking in the background and the end bit of a Bucks Fizz song that you’d taped over coming in at twice the volume after the theme tune. Probably half of eBay’s profits are made from people searching for some childhood object that will somehow bring with it childhood once again.