'Packing up the family home was like stepping away from my comfort blanket'
telegraph.co.ukMarie Kondo a run for her money. It wasn’t just sticky bottles of liqueur well past their use-by-dates, a million books, dated fashions and piles of just-in-case bed linen that made their way to the dump or charity shops: my battered dolls and my brother’s Airfix models were also disposed of.Mum had total clarity about what had to go, while for me the most faded household fixtures and fittings become hotlines to hidden memories.
I knew that she was right, even though every item, however mundane or broken, was charged with emotion when looked at anew.My sons, both in their 20s, were devastated that they would never again walk down the large, grassy garden –scene of umpteen childhood football games – to sit on the high stools in their grandmother’s kitchen.I had lived in that house from the age of 11, through adolescent angst and hours spent hogging the landline telephone talking to schoolfriends I’d only said goodbye to half an hour earlier.
It was the house I sneaked out from in tiny skirts and heavy eye makeup to avoid being told off; the backdoor I would creep back through in the early hours.Every doorway held its own history.
My bedroom was not just where I’d swotted for exams (or not) and swooned over my giant Kevin Keegan poster and life-sized Rod Stewart cardboard cut-out.
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