A couple of weeks ago I threw out old manuscripts from my filing cabinet and - with much pleasure - a clutch of rejection letters. And yesterday I actually got round to clearing my in tray. This has been on my to-do list for months.
There were some interesting finds in there: my mother's record of her 1939 stay at Bramham Park along with 25 nursery school children who had been evacuated from Leeds. The children were between two and a half and five years old, and my mother, a nursery school teacher, and the other scant staff, had to spend every hour of the day with them - asleep or awake, seven days a week.
To begin with they were in charge of the cooking too and she includes weekly menus, and the quantities needed to make them. My poor mother! She hated cooking. Eventually a general cook came from Leeds to help out, but even so, my mother comments "Things never got beyond reproach."
I also found my social researcher's information/advertising leaflet from the late 1990s:
When you open it up this is a sample of what you see (though in dark green print)
I also found these newspaper clippings:
When I got round to binning stuff and filing the rest, I made room in the filing cabinet by throwing out the detailed plans for a novel entitled "The Pippin Family Nit-Comb" and notes and plans for a brand new novel featuring Sally Howe, heroine of Plotting for Beginners and Plotting for Grown-ups. For some reason I couldn't bear to throw away my screenplay adaptation of But I Told You Last Year That I Loved You.
Then last night in bed, as I was writing my to-do list for today and emailing it to myself (a nightly habit) I felt sad about the unwritten Sally Howe novel, and added to the list "retrieve Sally Howe plans."
Don't hold your breath, though. I am a painter now, not a writer.
February Acrylics on canvas board. 42 x 59cms |
It's odd, isn't it, what we can, and cannot bear to throw away? I still have my mother's navy blue P.E. knickers from the 1920s and the 1950s Willis family nitcomb (labelled by her).
I wonder what my children will keep of things I leave behind.
3 comments:
My mother kept everything related to her children and grandchildren. Every letter, postcard, birthday card Every reference in a local newspaper Looking through this collection now she has died is an amazing experience, I feel grateful, delighted, tearful in equal measure
Ana
Yes, that's wonderful, Ana.
My mother kept the letters her mother had saved that we wrote when we were children, and I love to read them.
It’s such a precious connection,Sue and one which is probably most keenly appreciated by us and also at this moment in our lives
Ana
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