Reading Polly Hudson’s account of clearing her mother’s house (My mum has died – and every decision I make about her belongings feels wrong, 20 September) made me think about my experience of doing the same. I sort of enjoyed the task, viewing it as the last thing that I could do for my mother, and seeing myself as a curator in reverse.
I was determined to recycle as much as possible, feeding the good things through to charity shops and going back later to see what had and hadn’t sold. When one charity shop in the Welsh border town where my mother lived didn’t want her manual typewriter, on the grounds that nobody would have use for it, I took it to a charity shop in London, which snapped it up and put it in the window.
I kept a number of things, including some clothes that I wear, a sideboard that had belonged to my grandparents and assorted kitchenware. Some things were offered to family and friends who needed them. Correspondence was kept, including a bundle of letters that I’d sent to my mother when I was at college in the early 1980s. Clearing a house can be a peculiar joy – the marking of a life well lived and lovingly remembered.
Dorothy Stannard
London
Polly Hudson’s final paragraph is spot-on. So long as you have the physical space, it’s not a “now or never” thing. I went through my mother’s things in waves. Many items that were impossible to throw out the first time around had became less so when I revisited them a few months or a year later. It was a gradual process that felt reliable.
My sister and I evolved the concept of the “family archive”. So much that we as children were familiar with – such as what our parents looked like on holiday in their 40s – is fascinating to grandchildren who have only known them in old age, and the next generation will perhaps never have seen them at all.
We don’t keep everything. Pictures showing 1960s clothing, some predecimal coins and notes, a photograph of the house that was our family home for 50 years. To coming generations, a paper-based diary will be a real curio. A 50s-era small cardboard suitcase will be a suitable home for the archive.
Kersti Wagstaff
Billingshurst, West Sussex
Polly Hudson has my sympathy. My advice would be to take as much as you can to your own home before deciding. Every item holds memories not only of the person but of them in their home. Take any photos of where the items “lived”. Once removed, it can feel different and decisions may be easier.
I am starting a little bit of “death cleaning” before this has to be dealt with by my daughter. It’s slow, because my thoughts are always about “would she like this, would she be upset by me throwing this out or by keeping it?” I still have some of my parents’ stuff. Anyone interested in my mum’s school reports from the 1930s?
Jo Bannon
London
Sadly too late now, but maybe Polly Hudson should have persuaded her mother to downsize before she died. I am filled with guilt at the sheer amount of stuff that my daughter will have to deal with, but at least she won’t have the problem of disposing of the contents of six bedrooms and 18 bookshelves. I now make do with two of each.
Margaret Squires
St Andrews, Fife
