Regular readers will know that, apart from my descendants, I am singularly lacking in relatives: no siblings, no first cousins, only six second cousins, all on the same side of the family. When I say that people often think I mean those are all the cousins I know about but no, that’s really all there are and they are very important to me. Third cousins and I have met two of those for the first time in the last couple of years, are practically my closest relatives. Actually, that’s not strictly true, one of those third cousins was in my class at school but we didn’t know we were related at the time.

The advantage of having three grandparents who had no siblings that survived babyhood is that I am the inheritor of the heirlooms. On my father’s side, there is very little but on my mother’s there are many photographs, non-valuable jewellery, documents, ornaments and textiles. They have little or no intrinsic value but they are priceless to me. I am very aware of what a privilege it is to be their custodian.

The way I look at heirlooms has been shaped by my recent material culture certificate experience. For an object to become a treasure, rather than just a thing, it needs to have a story, that’s what gives it an emotional dimension. The implications of this Open University article are that an emotional attachment to things is not healthy. The article says ‘Each object is associated with important people, places or experiences and they become incorporated into the self, so that the prospect of getting rid of a possession feels like losing part of oneself. Everyone does this but hoarders see deeper meaning and value in far more items and a much wider variety of items.’ I like to think that I haven’t reached hoarding level, I can still walk across all the rooms in my house. Yes, getting rid of some possessions would be like losing part of myself, although the lockdown clear out of the loft did see me jettison some of the collections that my mother treasured, although I still have many more. You name it, mum collected it, stamps, cheese labels, matchboxes, tea and cigarette cards, the list goes on.

I know I need to tell the stories behind the ‘things’ that are currently in my possession; that way my descendants will at least know what they are discarding, if discard they do, although of course I hope they won’t. This is as important as telling the stories of the family.

I really enjoyed running my heirlooms workshop for the recent Really Useful Show, in which I aimed to encourage others to look at heirlooms in a rather different way and to tell their stories. I don’t get the chance to spend much time with my descendants and rarely are they able to visit me, so I don’t get the opportunity to bombard them with stories of the family treasures that are in my home. I’ve begun working on a website that will ‘house’ both family stories and the meaning behind the objects that I have inherited. Sadly, some of those stories are already lost and I am left with, ‘this has been around for years not sure if it was made by my mum or granny’, or ‘this belonged to the Smith family but I don’t know much more.’ Despite having thought I had asked my mum everything there was to ask, clearly I didn’t. If you still have people in your family you can ask, do it now, Christmas is the season when we connect with family, even if it is only a Christmas card (yes people of my generation do still sometimes send those). Ask. Ask. Ask. If, like me, you are your own oldest relative then the mantra is tell, tell, tell. Don’t wait for your descendants/heirs to ask the questions, make sure you leave the answers for them to find.

For some years I have had an inventory that mentions what things around the house are, along the lines of ‘hideous pink vase on third shelf was Auntie Annie’s’. This does rely on me not moving things. The one I worry about most is, ‘All the Christmas decorations in the turkey box date from the 1960s or earlier’. What happens if I go to join the ancestors when they are on the Christmas tree? So, it is time to tell their stories. I have begin to work on a website that will do just that and I will make sure the information is in another format as well, a photobook would be good. I may be some time. I know the website will be of limited interest to outsiders but it seemed a good format to choose; it isn’t really meant for anyone except my descendants. I could keep it private but I won’t, in the hope that it encourages others to do likewise. It needs a lot more work before there’s enough to make it live but it is a work in progress.

I have also been helping to work on another website that I hope more will appreciate, that goes live next week but that, as they say, is another story.

I leave you with a picture of the (unfinished) patchwork quilt. There is a reason it is unfinished but you will have to wait until I tell its story to find out why. It has been worked on by four generations of my family and now my grandchildren are big enough to hold a needle without too much collateral damage, I plan to get my children and grandchildren to work on it too, so we will have six generations who have played their part.