Reading old letters

I'm tidying up my computer ready to transfer stuff to the new one and get rid of old rubbish. I had a folder of letters to my Mum and my Dad (they had been divorced forever). I hesitated to look at any of them as they've been there for many years - I used to type letters to my dad in large font so they were easier for him to read. And always wrote my mum a long letter instead of just sending a mothers day card (but with some fancy happy mothers day motif on it.

Well I didn't get too sad - even reading the ones I wrote my dad asking him to come and stay with us in Cornwall shortly before he died because .... of course .... most of what I wrote was all news about my kids (their grandkids).

I actually ended up laughing about stuff I'd completely forgotten.

Like the time Martin had a Uni holiday job clearing out stuff at Holloway College and they let him have an old skeleton head that needed a bit of fixing up. And he and his brother were trying to decide if it was male or female - his brother said 'female because of the large jaw all that talking girls do makes their jaws grow'. Martin said yeah female because it looks like a lot of the girls you've been out with!

Then little Jenny being brave enough to pull her own first loose baby tooth out - wiggling it like mad until it came out and then in argument with her brother because he wanted it to glue into his Yorick and Jen wanted it for the Tooth Fairy!

Then the time when Jen was a Brownie and Martin told her he had reported her to her 'Sixer' for beating him up (he is 13 yrs older than Jen she started school as he went away to Uni) saying Brownies are supposed to do 'Good Deeds'. Little Jen replied saying 'we only have to do ONE a day and I'd already done one before I beat you up!'

Oh happy days - when your kids are growing up!

Oh old letters can be so emotive . It's great they made you laugh and brought back some happy and amusing memories.

I've never been able to read back over letters that were sent to me when my Dad died, or even when I lost my last dog .... one day maybe. My Dad died in 1997 but its seems like only a few years ago and we were really close.

I started writing a daily diary when I was 11 as my grandmother bought me a diary and it makes me really laugh reading those back. I seemed to have written about what I wore more than what I did Also reading about my first encounters with boys

I used to write up a quick diary on all our boating holidays with the boys when they were quite young. Years later they were so happy that I'd recorded when they caught their first fish!

I reminded Danny tonight about when he caught his first eel in the river (at about sunrise) a big cheer went up from a passing narrowboat as he held it aloft then, to show it to me, still sleeping on the boat, he calmly lowered the catch net down through the hatch ARGGGHHHH! I will never forget that one! Down near the old ruined monastery on the Wey.

His proudest moment and one of my scariest!

Tang that's hilarious! I quite like reading old letters brings back good memories I think

Yes - admit I thought it might make me feel sad. I did feel some regrets about some stuff but on the whole I really did enjoy being reminded about stuff I'd forgotten about.

I then spent about half hour looking at my old lists of Records for Auction (used to buy and sell Blues and Soul records in my yoof) importing them from America and Auctioning them off. Reminded me of a few old favourites I'd enjoyed circa 40 yrs ago! Ended up listening to Etta James and the like on YouTube!

Oh and speaking to Martin on Skype later ended up with him bemoaning the fact that I'd got rid of his SKULL going on at length about how difficult it is to get permission to own a human skull and how many hundreds of pounds they cost blah blah blah.

Truth behind that story is that I'd stored all his stuff for many years since he left Uni. Including boxes and boxes of paper from his degree work, bulky leather motorcycle gear (he'd given up riding after a nasty accident and had cars ever since). Moved it from house to house with me three times. Soon as he'd been working long enough to have a nice place of his own and I was downsizing I said to him 'NOW what about all this stuff of yours that I've been paying Pickfords to move from house to house and store in attics and outhouses' telling him he had more room for it now than I did and he could have it back now. (Every time I'd moved I'd asked him if he still wanted it and he said 'yes please just hang onto it for me until I can get it).

His reply - oh just chuck it all out - can't even remember half what's in their now and I don't want to clutter up this place.'

Kids! Huh!