Loved this, and loved the spread of what was in that jar. So interesting, what was saved. The only thing I wanted was a photo of the scary broken doll. Dolls are sort of scary from the git-go.
I bet this was as mu h fun to write as it is to read.
Yup! Brrrr. I'm glad I had my sister with me at the time to share the horror.
Thanks so much for subscribing to my newsletter and for recommending me. Three weeks since I nervously pressed Publish on my first post and I am blown away by the talented voices I'm finding here. Your encouragement and feedback means so much.
This reminds me of clearing my mum’s house, minus the dog hair. To be fair, I found all my old school exercise books that I had made Mum keep, then promptly threw away when faced with the prospect of taking them to my own home.
Thanks for reading and commenting, Andréa. Interesting parallels.
It was interesting with things like old school books. I wanted to keep some of mine; my sister really wanted rid of hers. Too many negative associations.
Thanks so much for reading and taking time to comment, Jolene. Really appreciate it. There’s a whole other post about the pessaries! I simply had to know more!
Oh wow. Seeing your ponytails like that, brought a lump to my throat. I really can’t imagine the nerves of steel you needed to manage clearing your parents/family home.
My parents are both still alive and remarried. My father’s house is going to be similar to this I think.
Thanks, Margaret. One step at a time with it all, one day at a time. I wish I hadn't dreaded it quite so much, because when it came to it, it was cathartic and energetic and helped me remember my childhood and grieve my parents. And there really were some gems. I still dream about the house (and them) regularly. x
Oh, this brought back memories of clearing my parents' house eight years ago! So much stuff--meaningless, yet full of meaning. Love the pink little girl looking defiant...
I feel you were meant to stumble on my writing today so I find you and have the joyful gleeful pleasure of reading this piece in particular. Hoarders are dear to my heart. For this reason. Every bit and bob has a story. Love love LOVE this.
From what I read this morning, you weave those time-shifts of memory and of loss, and the daily reminders of times past really skillfully. Looking forward to diving back in later today.
So much here resonates with my mother. This is a wonderful piece. And it’s breathtaking to think you were clearing it all out the same year my spouse and I were tacking my mother’s loft. Your mum’s hair fascination is amazing. I did find one lock, a curl of red from the minimalist sculptor Fred Sandback, evidence of her obsessive love affair from the 70s. I also love Abigail Thomas. And I adore the tiny doll with hands on hips. Yes, I dreaded the task for years. Yes, she’d also kept many things from her aunt Ester’s passing. Yes, there was the box of tiny wrapped hotel and airline soaps… moved with us twice. And the jar of sugar packets, travel souvenirs, she once explained. And the plastic ziplock of all her expired passports… I found in her bed…(among many many many things). Ph! Please do read Snapshot of My Mother’s Bed, an older post of mine..😊
Thank you, Eliza. I love finding kindred spirits here, with kindred experiences.
Recognising everything you say here. I still have boxes to sort through, here in my home. So does my sister. We were just discussing yesterday how to move on with it. She hates lifting the lid.
I will look for your earlier essay. Wonderful to connect.
I can't even begin to imagine what clearing out the house was like for you Wendy. Seeing your pony tail! And the dog's fur clippings! Recently I started reading the Swedish Art of Death Cleaning, and although I'm not *too* much a hoarder I'd like our kids to have an easy job, when the time comes x
Ah, thanks, Fi! Like most things we dread it wasn’t as hard as I’d built it up to be. And there was catharsis in it. Tears and laughter. We just had to keep taking one day at a time. And thank God for that house clearance chap at the end with his Brutal Badge advice!
The trouble is, I still have the stuff we didn’t know what to do with. The photo albums, my great grandfather’s diaries (I must come from a long line of journal-keepers!). My grandmother’s quinine contraceptives! Not the dog fur though :D
So yes, getting my own house in order is the next thing! x
Oh Wendy, I adored this. Your mum sounds wonderful, I think she and I (and my tat-loving family) would have got on very well indeed. And thank you for the Preloved shout-out, that's one of my favourite lines so I'm delighted it struck a chord.
Thank you, Lauren. Everything about the charity shop in your novel was sparking memories. The collective groan whenever my mum came back with "bargains". She was also addicted to the Five Pounds and Under column in the local paper.
Yes, the pessaries are boggling. (Quinine and cocoa butter, and they really are wrapped like you're meant to eat them!) I looked up their history and they were available from the late 1800s. I feel a mini-essay coming on!
Also, thank you for subscribing to Wendy's World, Lauren. Means a lot. So many inspiring voices here, yours included. Was very nervous about jumping back in. The positive feedback is energising.
Thank you for reading and your kind comment, Francis.
I wanted to be fashionable! My mum insisted the hairdresser tie off the pony tail first so she could keep it. I don't know why my sister had hers cut. She had gorgeous blonde locks, as you can see!
Wendy, I was so happy to see your name here - I remember you from Just Seventeen (I did work experience there in the early 90s but I don’t remember if we met - I was super shy).
I love this post so much. Your mum sounds lovely. I’m about to start writing about a suitcase my sister and I found after our dad died, full of stuff Mum had kept since the fifties: letters, receipts, leaflets, a squashed Easter chick…
Hello Keris! Delighted you recognised my name! Thanks so much for reading and commenting, and for subscribing. I look forward to reading about what's in your mum's suitcase. Those Easter chicks got everywhere!
I wrote about the pessaries in my next piece along ('The secrets of my granny's quinine pessaries'). I simply had to know more! It turned into a brief history of 100 years of contraception.
I've still got some boxes from mum & dad's house that I have barely looked at yet. Some things were easy to designate as junk and get rid of, but photos and letters in particular hold family memories and histories.
I'm interested that you write about money. The biggest cause of conflict between my parents. Constant source of anxiety when I was growing up.
Yay for Just Seventeen! It's great that people have such fond memories of it. I worked there until the end of '86 and then freelanced occasionally, so we wouldn't have crossed paths. But what a place to do work experience. I hope they gave you some interesting assignments. I remember sending one 17-year old on work experience to interview The House Martins and she turned in such a good piece that we invited her back to freelance during her school holidays.
Loved this, and loved the spread of what was in that jar. So interesting, what was saved. The only thing I wanted was a photo of the scary broken doll. Dolls are sort of scary from the git-go.
I bet this was as mu h fun to write as it is to read.
I've noticed looking again at what what's in the jar that there are also teddy bear noses! (Or something noses!)
It was fun to write – thanks for asking what was in the jar.
I can't see an option to add an image in these comments, but I'll put the doll on Notes for you. It is pretty freaky!
I have added the doll to the footnotes!
Oh my God. And it's in a bowl! HELP!!!
Yup! Brrrr. I'm glad I had my sister with me at the time to share the horror.
Thanks so much for subscribing to my newsletter and for recommending me. Three weeks since I nervously pressed Publish on my first post and I am blown away by the talented voices I'm finding here. Your encouragement and feedback means so much.
This reminds me of clearing my mum’s house, minus the dog hair. To be fair, I found all my old school exercise books that I had made Mum keep, then promptly threw away when faced with the prospect of taking them to my own home.
Thanks for reading and commenting, Andréa. Interesting parallels.
It was interesting with things like old school books. I wanted to keep some of mine; my sister really wanted rid of hers. Too many negative associations.
I did keep a bag of all the notes my friends and I would pass at school 📝
Loved this, Wendy! Quinine pessaries, oh my!
All of this is so beautifully written.
More on those pessaries, Jolene!
https://open.substack.com/pub/wendyvarley/p/secrets-of-my-grannys-quinine-pessaries?r=cmaaf&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Thank you!
Thanks so much for reading and taking time to comment, Jolene. Really appreciate it. There’s a whole other post about the pessaries! I simply had to know more!
Oh wow. Seeing your ponytails like that, brought a lump to my throat. I really can’t imagine the nerves of steel you needed to manage clearing your parents/family home.
My parents are both still alive and remarried. My father’s house is going to be similar to this I think.
I love the jar. It’s perfect.
Thanks, Margaret. One step at a time with it all, one day at a time. I wish I hadn't dreaded it quite so much, because when it came to it, it was cathartic and energetic and helped me remember my childhood and grieve my parents. And there really were some gems. I still dream about the house (and them) regularly. x
Oh, this brought back memories of clearing my parents' house eight years ago! So much stuff--meaningless, yet full of meaning. Love the pink little girl looking defiant...
Thank you, June. Sounds like we have a lot in common!
Meaningless, yet full of meaning is a good way of putting it!
I feel you were meant to stumble on my writing today so I find you and have the joyful gleeful pleasure of reading this piece in particular. Hoarders are dear to my heart. For this reason. Every bit and bob has a story. Love love LOVE this.
My house, an archive of regret
stores the relics other's homes shed
each aunt's, each mother's mother's
left
needles still in wool; a photograph of kids at school; a father's brother's vest, undecorated yet;
my children's photographs now filed under their own and mine beneath my mother's frame
Thanks, Cherry. Wonderful to find other writers with similar experiences. Loving your writing.
Gosh. Thank you.
From what I read this morning, you weave those time-shifts of memory and of loss, and the daily reminders of times past really skillfully. Looking forward to diving back in later today.
So much here resonates with my mother. This is a wonderful piece. And it’s breathtaking to think you were clearing it all out the same year my spouse and I were tacking my mother’s loft. Your mum’s hair fascination is amazing. I did find one lock, a curl of red from the minimalist sculptor Fred Sandback, evidence of her obsessive love affair from the 70s. I also love Abigail Thomas. And I adore the tiny doll with hands on hips. Yes, I dreaded the task for years. Yes, she’d also kept many things from her aunt Ester’s passing. Yes, there was the box of tiny wrapped hotel and airline soaps… moved with us twice. And the jar of sugar packets, travel souvenirs, she once explained. And the plastic ziplock of all her expired passports… I found in her bed…(among many many many things). Ph! Please do read Snapshot of My Mother’s Bed, an older post of mine..😊
Thank you, Eliza. I love finding kindred spirits here, with kindred experiences.
Recognising everything you say here. I still have boxes to sort through, here in my home. So does my sister. We were just discussing yesterday how to move on with it. She hates lifting the lid.
I will look for your earlier essay. Wonderful to connect.
My substack is relying heavily on the boxes I brought back from my mother’s loft in SoHo. As difficult as it is, the stuff is writing gold!
I can't even begin to imagine what clearing out the house was like for you Wendy. Seeing your pony tail! And the dog's fur clippings! Recently I started reading the Swedish Art of Death Cleaning, and although I'm not *too* much a hoarder I'd like our kids to have an easy job, when the time comes x
Ah, thanks, Fi! Like most things we dread it wasn’t as hard as I’d built it up to be. And there was catharsis in it. Tears and laughter. We just had to keep taking one day at a time. And thank God for that house clearance chap at the end with his Brutal Badge advice!
The trouble is, I still have the stuff we didn’t know what to do with. The photo albums, my great grandfather’s diaries (I must come from a long line of journal-keepers!). My grandmother’s quinine contraceptives! Not the dog fur though :D
So yes, getting my own house in order is the next thing! x
PS: I think I need to read that book, the Swedish Art of Death Cleaning – for getting my own house in order! Thanks for the tip!
By Margareta Magnusson x
This is bright and beautiful Wendy. So many layers to this. Have a lovely day!
Thanks so much, Andrea. Hope you're having a good day, too!
Oh Wendy, I adored this. Your mum sounds wonderful, I think she and I (and my tat-loving family) would have got on very well indeed. And thank you for the Preloved shout-out, that's one of my favourite lines so I'm delighted it struck a chord.
Also – the quinine pessaries!!! Incredible.
Thank you, Lauren. Everything about the charity shop in your novel was sparking memories. The collective groan whenever my mum came back with "bargains". She was also addicted to the Five Pounds and Under column in the local paper.
Yes, the pessaries are boggling. (Quinine and cocoa butter, and they really are wrapped like you're meant to eat them!) I looked up their history and they were available from the late 1800s. I feel a mini-essay coming on!
Also, thank you for subscribing to Wendy's World, Lauren. Means a lot. So many inspiring voices here, yours included. Was very nervous about jumping back in. The positive feedback is energising.
loved this, so will my sister, fascinated by the jar and its contents, do you remember why you had all your lovely long hair cut off ?
Thank you for reading and your kind comment, Francis.
I wanted to be fashionable! My mum insisted the hairdresser tie off the pony tail first so she could keep it. I don't know why my sister had hers cut. She had gorgeous blonde locks, as you can see!
Wendy, I was so happy to see your name here - I remember you from Just Seventeen (I did work experience there in the early 90s but I don’t remember if we met - I was super shy).
I love this post so much. Your mum sounds lovely. I’m about to start writing about a suitcase my sister and I found after our dad died, full of stuff Mum had kept since the fifties: letters, receipts, leaflets, a squashed Easter chick…
Also yikes to quinine contraceptive pessaries!
Hello Keris! Delighted you recognised my name! Thanks so much for reading and commenting, and for subscribing. I look forward to reading about what's in your mum's suitcase. Those Easter chicks got everywhere!
I wrote about the pessaries in my next piece along ('The secrets of my granny's quinine pessaries'). I simply had to know more! It turned into a brief history of 100 years of contraception.
I've still got some boxes from mum & dad's house that I have barely looked at yet. Some things were easy to designate as junk and get rid of, but photos and letters in particular hold family memories and histories.
I'm interested that you write about money. The biggest cause of conflict between my parents. Constant source of anxiety when I was growing up.
Yay for Just Seventeen! It's great that people have such fond memories of it. I worked there until the end of '86 and then freelanced occasionally, so we wouldn't have crossed paths. But what a place to do work experience. I hope they gave you some interesting assignments. I remember sending one 17-year old on work experience to interview The House Martins and she turned in such a good piece that we invited her back to freelance during her school holidays.
Great to be in touch here!