“Who’s going to read them?”

Well, me of course. They are my memories. My friend was commenting on the pile of scrapbooks, calendars and diaries that swamps the dining room table. I can’t just throw them away. So much effort has gone into carefully compiling each scrapbook. However, I seldom completed the year’s books and I stopped making them around the turn of the century. I did continue with taking photos, usually obtains two sets of prints before going over to digital. Every time I rummage through the heaps in my craft room I resolve to ‘do something’ about my collections. And now we are seventeen years into the new century and my accumulation of stuff is overwhelming.

So I pulled the top few scrapbooks of the pile and set to work. 1987. Now to find the accompanying diary and calendar. This was the year of the great snowfall that brought southern England to a standstill. The year of the October hurricane which wreaked havoc as it uprooted entire trees and lifted off whole roofs. And the year that I had a one-term secondment as an advisory teacher for computing. So many memories.

To repeat, “Who IS going to read them?” Well, I like to take the occasional walk down Memory Lane so that is a good enough reason to hang on to them. However I need to be ruthless and selective. All the calendars and diaries can go into the re-cycling after I have transferred the significant dates into my scrapbooks. The scrapbooks can be tidied, given a new cover and dated. Have no idea what to do with my metre high pile of picture postcards – it seems such a shame to throw them out.

Do I have a deadline? Well, it was set for Easter but I need to be realistic and fair to myself. So I have re-set the deadline to Christmas. By the end of this year I want all my memories neatly sorted and stored, yet easily accessible for a nostalgic browse. Will anyone else read them? Well, my visitors can browse through them if they want to.

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