Here's a letterhead for my great grandfather's millinery business- which doesn't exist anymore. And here's a letter from my father to my grandfather thanking him for his advice in the setting up of his engineering business- which doesn't exist anymore.
And here- collected together in a brown envelope- are my sister's school reports. Oh dear, Jenny, I get the impression you weren't trying very hard...
Old papers- so important, so absorbing, so worrying in their time- and they no longer matter in the least. The creditors have shut up shop, the money has been spent, the issues have gone cold and the world has moved on.
