“NO, Dad, I want to hang on to it, just in case….”

Along with my many good points (undoubted charm and astonishing good looks) my son seems to have inherited my mild hoarding gene.

Our loft is a collection of toys with which he will never again play but are all far too precious from which to part, and cardboard boxes from gadgets and devices retained in case we ever needed to send them back. Most of the contents of these have long since gone to that great recycling bin in the sky, but the boxes live on, haunting a graveyard between ceiling and sky, reminding me of their content’s years (or months) of faithful service.

Occasionally I have a clear out. An array of objects will descend to the landing to be inspected and then mostly returned to their ‘temporary’ resting place with those hallowed words ‘just in case’. My son’s new line is ‘I want to keep them for my children to play with’. From a 12-year-old, that’s an act of faith in the upcoming generation that I’m both impressed and admonished by. Where is the wondrous assemblage of playthings from my youth with which to entertain and excite him? Clearly the hoarding gene took a while to express itself.

We agree that a handful of boxes can be recycled and, after a moment’s silence spent honouring and recalling the joy and frustration of their former contents, they are confined to the blue lidded bin.

In the rest of the house several cupboards and drawers echo the shrine to the past under which we live. There is a ‘bits and pieces’ drawer in the kitchen – screws, clips, Allen keys, spare parts and accoutrements which are too essential to be discarded, although I’ve long since forgotten what they are essential for.

There’s the cupboard with containers and utensils for summer picnics; on the rare occasions that the weather lets up sufficiently, I either forget that they are there or the picnic is so impromptu that it comprises supermarket delicacies that already have packing and wrapping in superabundance.

Much has been written about the value of decluttering our lives. Of letting go of the things that bind us to the past, of removing from our lives of the illusion that happiness lies in acquiring ‘things’ rather than in the joy of experience or value of relationships.

That’s all true. But for my son and me, a trip down memory lane, the surprise of a joyous recollection, the bittersweet reminiscence of a previous existence is worth the loss of a bit of cupboard and drawer space.

We smile together, push our memories back into the recesses of our mind along with the objects that provoked them and go on to create new ones to smile afresh at the future.