Many homes have a hoarder, a collector of items, souvenirs, mementoes, toys, anything from sentimental to historical objects which gather dust, get donated, or are disposed of when the collector themselves reach the ephemeral stage.

Exhibit One: These skinny Brisbane telephone books are clinging on to past glories when everyone in business or at home reached for the ubiquitous phone book for a million different reasons. (Of course, prior to that, Directory Assistance were actually real women in the exchange answering calls with plugs and cords). The ‘modern’ phone book was a thick, chunky, printed paper volume in every home, every phone booth and on every desk in Australia. Now the same service is extended a billion times more via electronic means, mainly mobile phones. Except now you have to look more closely, assess more astutely, question more thoroughly the validity and genuineness of what you are reading from an often unverified source via an individual screen.

Exhibit Two: I pondered longingly on which of my inherited items would have the most value. Neither seem likely. Who wants old phone books and who polishes cake forks to use on a hand-painted cake server with a handle? This one was made and crafted in England by Royal Winton Grimwades pottery. It has all the right marks on the back to suggest it is genuine but relatively worthless. Royal Winton is an English brand of ceramics made by Grimwades Limited, a Stoke-on-Trent based company founded in 1885. The brand is particularly associated with chintzware and did not survive the unsentimental 1960s ethos of ‘Out with the old and in with the new’.

Let’s believe Peter Allen ‘Everything old is new again’. In the future will everyday items become useful again, reused, recycled, or just sentimentally remembered via old movies, ubiquitous YouTube and books—yes, books will still exist! Chat to your sweet grandmother, verbose grandfather or trusted mature person and listen to their stories before AI fiction rewrites their history.

❤  Gretchen Bernet-Ward

Postscript: Our personal memories only go back as far as we have lived. Or not. Depends on your age, health and wellbeing. Write those unique experiences down for the future! GBW.