Yesterday, Shirley and I were back at Simon's cottage, trying to clear up the detritus. Sorting through it, saving and dismissing his stuff like beachcombers.
As Simon lived with our mother for the last years of her active life, there was also some of her detritus to make decisions upon. Bits of evidence of our family life in the village. Four sons, a mother and a father - none of us thinking of death - just getting on with living. But mostly it was Simon's stuff.
Old school reports. Exam certificates. Postcards from afar. Letters that did not get thrown away. Birthday cards. Books and maps. A tin of dome-headed drawing pins. A poem. Leather belts. Fading photographs. A school badge. School ties. My father's green cricket cap from Malton Grammar School circa 1933. A pre-war theatre programme in which Mum was credited. Pressed flowers turned to dust. A cassette tape. Diaries listing the voyages that Simon made when he worked aboard small coasters that carried goods to and fro across The North Sea. Three brand new kettles. Jackets and work boots. His curriculum vitae. A purple "Gonk". Many tools old and new. Badges. A dead butterfly - a painted lady. Etcetera.
Some of the stuff will end up at the Household Recycling Centre in Hornsea. Some will be donated to charity shops in Sheffield. Some went into the waste bins outside the cottages and a few items we will keep including a brass-topped occasional table from India. Our parents brought it back to England after World War II. I am hoping that Ian and Sarah might like it.
Simon's six year old Mercedes van is still parked outside the cottages. I have no authority to drive it and we have found no paperwork connected with his ownership, insurance and maintenance of that van. It will be a good long while before we are in a position to sell it.
That's how it is. That's where we are at. Dealing with the detritus. And we will be back on Monday afternoon after my appointment to register his death in the city of Hull and to collect some death certificates which to my disgust cost £11 each.
from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/cLJgEiA
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