Decluttering Part III
OK, so two years ago I wrote about decluttering. I thought I might post more frequent progress updates. I didn't. A year ago I wrote about my hopes of finishing the last phase this year. I haven't. What is going on?
Right now, I am making reasonable progress. But there is so much of it to get through. It takes so much time. And so many things stopped me getting on with it.
It wasn't until April that my sister and I finally sold the family home, where we'd grown up since 1980. We'd found a buyer the previous September, but legal complications dragged the sale out. Thankfully our buyers were patient, though both they and we were quite impatient by the end. We had the luxury of time for long goodbyes, but it was good to let go in the end. I was pleased we managed without a skip or house clearers, and distributed most of the contents to people who said they could use them. Perhaps I'm deluding myself and just passed on the problem of disposal to them. Some of the photos on this page are the items we passed on.
A lot of the contents ended up in our house. There were various bits of daily business and consequences of selling up that delayed my sorting them out further. But I've been sorting more of that on and off the last few months.
As time moves on, it's harder to admit to this. I gave up regular work to look after Mum nearly 12 years ago. She died 15 months ago. I feel like I should be getting back to the rest of my life. Other people probably feel that even more strongly. Why is it taking me so long? Why don't I just bin the lot?
Because it's interesting to look at. Because I don't want to carry it all around wherever I and my family move, but some of it is worth keeping.
Because some of the clutter is my work material that needs putting in order before I take on more work.
Because our house has become the resting place for the remnants of at least 12 other people's lives. Because my forebears have tried, succeeded, or failed to sort out the remnants, and now it's up to me. Because I don't want to make my son inherit all the sorting.
Because we hang on to what we have, when many do not, or have had to leave it all behind. Because even my wife, for various reasons and to her regret, has been able to save very few of her late mother's possessions.
Because I can't keep it all. Because we have a scanner.
Gone
Among the many things which have gone so far are :
Files and files of papers relating to the last ten years of looking after Mum.
Advice from Specsavers to put olive oil in her ears to prevent wax blockages (a bone of contention with her care home 2 years ago
Tickets I collected in childhood and early adulthood - bus tickets, stubs of museum tickets, currency exchange receipts, theatre tickets (why?). 1980s Alton Towers photo passes (sold on ebay!)
Mum's assertiveness course handbook from 1993, in which she wrote her intention of clearing out the unwanted papers that I am now clearing out.
Great Uncle Jack's masonic medals, and other items of (albeit limited) value
Mum's notes of phone calls with us
X-rays from the wrist Mum broke in France in 1964, which she was still citing as a lingering problem in her last week of life.
Dried leaves collected from Buckingham Palace garden party, 1978
Mum's collection of halved cotton buds
Mum's school books and university notes.
Where did they go?
Recycling, freecycling, ebay, friends, archives.
Dad's bike went to the National Cycle Museum in Llandrindod Wells. When we got it there, they looked disappointed and admitted they hadn't been able to open the photo.
Someone collected many of the last contents of Brooklands for a pet sanctuary. The buyers took the second hand grandfather clock which my grandfather bought in his 40s, which has a very loud tick, a louder chime, and is not in its original case.
Some Brethren tracts are going to the Brethren archive; a freecycler interested in their theology took some more (may God help him).
I sold a 1940s upright Hoover on ebay to someone who knew when and where it was made, persuaded me to dismantle, box, and post it, and won it in an auction against another bidder at the final second, though not much to my advantage. I have not made much money from ebay.
A homeless charity got stacks of linen bought 50 years ago and unused. Friends took and refurbished a table and other pieces of furniture.
I sent one of the four copies of Alice in Wonderland to the charity shop because it was falling apart, only to realise it was the one with the Tenniel drawings in. John Bunyan's works made a few pounds at auction, making me wish I'd kept them. I also sent a lot of other books that I haven't missed to charity shops, including those on Queens' Road, Leicester, which said they could even sell the old volumes with binding falling apart.
Scanned
Some of them I have scanned or otherwise copied. For example,
Dad's self-penned obituaries. Better, I thought, than what I wrote for his funeral.
Letters in mirrored mock-Greek script code from a friend during the hardest times in the Exclusive Brethren. Letters saying goodbye from same friend when Mum left the Brethren (the friend left the next year and their friendship survived). Letters of apology from brethren years later.
Mum's reports and degree certificates. I either never heard, or didn't remember, that she was top of the class through most of her schooling, and a prefect, but failed her first degree and got a third on retaking it, because of sleep problems.
All the credit to her for getting an MPhil in 2006.
Portrait of Mum by her close friend Val, who died this year.
Mum's drawings for Scripture school work, aged 9.
Dad's drawings for the French classes Mum taught in the 1980s.
Mum's letters protesting about the downsizing, after funding cuts, of the adult placement scheme she ran in Warwickshire in the late 80s.
Dad's flowery write-up of gang fights in 1950s youth clubs. Letter about the academic jobs he turned down. His illustrated invitation to a leaving party.
Pending
Among the many, many things still to make decisions about are:
A box of my great aunt's (d. 1950) love letters received during the First World War.
Chest of old photos. Victorian photos with notes of family members, rightly and wrongly identified. Photos of houses built by my great grandfather in Colorado. 1930s studio photos which make me wonder why we don't take them, kept in boxes and envelopes which tell me why we don't. What do I do with them? Photos will scan but can't be recycled, our council's contractors tell me.
Great grandfather's diaries 1910s-1930s.
Architects' plans for unbuilt extensions to houses owned in the 1950s.
Papers relating to the farm my great-great-great grandfather lost in the 1840s whilst in debtors' prison during the Welsh Tithe war. The deeds are reputed to have been lost. According to the papers it's more likely he forfeited the house after mortgaging it to his cousin.
Poster for farm sale, to remind me that my family do get rid of some things. Disintegrated poster announcing the death of my great aunt Eleanora, who died aged 10. Her younger sister (my grandmother)'s school books.
Great uncle Jos's papers, late in WW1, ending his exemption, as a farmer, from military service. (He didn't fight. His comment later: "being brought up on the land, soldiering did not so readily appeal.") Papers about his taking in prisoners of war to work on the farm in WW2. Notes about food aid packages posted to my family from Canada and Australia after the war ended.
Old floppy disks, CDs and tapes.
Singer sewing machine, Kenwood chefs & attachments, toys, games, books, china, lots of other junk...
Progress
Last year I used metaphors of climbing mountains, writing theses. During both activities, there usually turns out to be more to do than meets the eye. It does now feel as if I can see over the other side of the mountain, or to the end of the thesis. But there is a long way still to go. Currently I think I'm on course to finish the bulk by next spring, perhaps picking up more work as I reach the end. But who knows? Come back here for updates, if you're that interested.
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