Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Taz2]

I am finally getting round to sorting out the boxes and boxes of stuff which we brought back from my parents house after they died within a few months of each other almost ten years ago.

I think that my dad kept every postcard they were ever sent! I have discovered a box of photo albums full of postcards. There are obviously some really old ones going back to the late thirties when he was a young guy motor cycling around England as often as he could. He sent postcards most days to his parents - the only way of keeping in touch then I suppose - and they obviously kept them and then, when they died in 1960, he must have squirreled them away. There are cards from my friends to me ranging from when I was six up to sixteen which are really hilarious to read. There are cards from my long dead much loved aunties and uncles and other relatives. There are cards from my sons when they were small and my nieces too. One card reads "Hop yuu having a nicer time then me. I've got a bad cold".  One from my hypochondriac aunt says "The air here doesn't agree with me. My nights are dreadful. Les (my uncle) is fine but he is easily pleased"  I could conjure her up immediately and hear her nasally voice!

I have sorted them out over the past two days and I have got in touch with the people related to the senders of the cards to see if they want them and they have all said "Yes". It is like a little bit of history.

My dad decided that postcards were much better than photographs so everywhere they went he would buy a postcard or two - starting back in 1938 and stopping around 2000. I'm taking the ones I don't want to a local postcard dealer.

Taz x

[CLKD]

Make sure that you get a good price!  Dealers can be tight.  Are you putting bits of history with the cards?  I have piles on our lounge floor still to collate 

I have Dad's gardening records and photos to complete ....... but the dining room table is full of stuff relating to DH and his photography
 

[Taz2]

I'm not really bothered on the price to be honest - just want them out of my garage and off to someone who might appreciate them. It's been fun reading them. I found one from one of my sons to my mum and dad and it said "Thank you for the presents and for the bubble gum. I will have to save that til I have grown my new teeth"    Obviously that one's not going in the dealers box.

I have one sentimental son and two who aren't so it's not worth keeping too much.

Taz x

[CLKD]

I have one from my Dad mentioning someone by the name of 'Millie' ....... in France.  Now we've never heard of Millie  ........

[Taz2]

I do sometimes wonder what my sons will make of my collection of postcards and letters... they might be a bit surprised!

Taz x

[Hurdity]

What a lovely thing to find!

My grandpa did the same thing and my mother has boxes of all his old postcards too which are also probably quite valuable but we haven't really gone through them, but I am a bit sentimental and not sure I could part with them, although I don't feel quite so close to them though because he was a generation removed so I won't know many of the people. As well as postcards he also collected "ephemera" and she (my mum) has all his scrap books full of tickets and things going back years.

It must be amazing reading through all of these - bringing back such memories!

Hurdity x

[Taz2]

Yes I'm gradually wading through the scrapbooks of tickets etc. as well. They are great to look at but they also take up space. My sons are not bothered about them really and I am at the stage of trying to reduce what they will have to sort through when I die - which sounds morbid but will obviously eventually happen!

One of my cousins is so pleased because his dad didn't keep anything - ever. He threw away birthday cards the day after his birthday, read any letters and put them in the bin straight after.  Hardly wrote anything down so they don't have much of him really. My dad, on the other hand, kept copious records about day trips out - the route they took, how many miles how much mpg he got, the weather, who went, what was in the picnic basket. He kept a garden diary of when he planted everything and when it flowered and there are little notes scribbled on bits of paper. It's lovely to read now but I remember my mum tutting about "you and your notebooks".  She was the same mind you - the bits of old envelopes I keep finding with her scribblings on. 

Taz x

[honeybun]

It must tug at the heart strings though Taz.

My mother got rid of so much of my dad's stuff after he died so apart fro photos I have nothing. In fact I don't have one photo of my dad in my house. I was only 19 when he died.
It's one of my regrets that I did not listen to his stories. I was just a typical teenager and parents were boring. I have been doing a bit of research recently and intend to do some genealogy stuff in the winter. He came from a family of 13 children and had a French father. It is very interesting and I have found some very rattly skeletons in the family cupboard.

I would love to have what you have. Some personal stuff.

I know it takes up room but leave your kids some history. They may not think they would appreciate it but they will as they get older.

Honeyb
X

[Cazikins]

It's blooming hard isn't it Taz. I only have about 2 boxes but oh my goodness it does tug at the heart strings as HB says.
I have just discovered a smallish pamphlet entitled "Poems from Pegasus" journal of the parachute regiment & airborne forces. It is full of prayers & poems all compiled from old volumes of "PEGASUS" magazine.

You save some of them for your boys Taz. They will appreciate them & they will tressure them. And then they will show them to your grandchildren & so on.... You cannot replace or replicate these things.

Cazi xx

[Taz2]

That's a lovely thing to hang on to Cazi.

I spoke to my eldest son about some of my dad's things the other day and said something along the lines of " but you might like these when you are grown up" and he replied "Mum, I'm 32, how grown up do I have to be"    I think I meant that if he ever had children of his own he would see things differently.

I am keeping lots of stuff and when I go there will be lots of mine and their dad's stuff so I think they will have enough.

It is far easier going through it all ten years down the line but it takes a long time to work out the best way to dispose of things - not personal things but all the day to day stuff they accumulated such as trinkets and brass items and old tools and records not to mention books and more books.

Taz x

[honeybun]

Not easy Taz.

I just wish I had a few things. My sister has so much more but she was in her 30s and had her own place whereas I was still at home so there was no need for me to have anything for myself..
I have a few books and a probably very illegal kuchri (sp) gurka knife which is a bit fearsome. And that's it.

Sad really.


Honeyb
X

[CLKD]

How did the clearing go?   I've 5 boxes of postcards - many never written on as they were sent to my parents from friends in Switzerland when they were on their travels.  Those sorted into an album but didn't sell  .  There's a long story attached to most of the cards in those boxes  full of co-incidences.