Going Through The Bottom Drawer
Oct. 23rd, 2020 03:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloThere are four drawers in the bookcase-cum-bureau. We'll start at the bottom.
This is a drawer into which my grandmother and mother have thrown things they didn't want to look at again but couldn't bear to part with.
These include:
All the letters of condolence my grandmother received on the death of my grandfather in 1939.
Several newspaper supplements relating to the death and burying of Winston Churchill- who was something of a family hero (but not to me. Stamp, pout!)
Letters home from two generations of kids who had been banged up in boarding schools- one of whom was myself. I remember having to write the damn things- arduously trying to be grown-up and entertaining and duly grateful for small benefits received, scraping round for news when there isn't really any (I'm at school and wish I wasn't) and avoiding any expression of real feeling. Looking through them is dispiriting. My mother's letter home are even duller than mine, my sister's a little livelier.
These things have hung around for long enough; I won't be passing them on to the next generation.
But I will be passing on the photographs of my great great great grandparents...
This is a drawer into which my grandmother and mother have thrown things they didn't want to look at again but couldn't bear to part with.
These include:
All the letters of condolence my grandmother received on the death of my grandfather in 1939.
Several newspaper supplements relating to the death and burying of Winston Churchill- who was something of a family hero (but not to me. Stamp, pout!)
Letters home from two generations of kids who had been banged up in boarding schools- one of whom was myself. I remember having to write the damn things- arduously trying to be grown-up and entertaining and duly grateful for small benefits received, scraping round for news when there isn't really any (I'm at school and wish I wasn't) and avoiding any expression of real feeling. Looking through them is dispiriting. My mother's letter home are even duller than mine, my sister's a little livelier.
These things have hung around for long enough; I won't be passing them on to the next generation.
But I will be passing on the photographs of my great great great grandparents...
