"Laugh or You'll Cry"

( Not that sort)….no gold, but pieces of paper, letters, cards, memories stored by my mum over 50 years in her desk.

Her desk epitomized my mother. It was her work station for any correspondence. Those 150 Christmas cards she sent ever year would be written here. Any birthday cards, and with a family reaching over 35 members, not to mention friends, & cousins there were many birthdays, wedding anniversary’s to post cards for.

My brother sent a collection of items from the desk relating to me, as he’d sorted and given to each of mums 4 children. She’d kept important memories hidden  away in this muddle of a time capsule. Buried among cheque book stubs, receipts, envelopes, & stacks of newly bought birthday cards in preparation for the next date in her diary.

It arrived last Tues ,our wedding anniversary and was such a treat to unwrap. I’d no idea what was inside- opened the package, thinking it may contain xmas cards I had ordered by mistake,  more bras from M & S ? But no it was- envelopes, cards & memories from my past.

Above the Sports day agenda from 1967 at my junior school ‘Cransley‘. Fancy mum keeping that all these years. And the school rules for my secondary school ‘ Altrincham Grammar school’.I started Altrincham Grammar School in 1973 I think- it is quite amusing to read some of the rules now. 1c) no girls may leave the  school premises during school hours. I don’t expect the head would have been to happy about each time I walked back from hockey & dived in to see  Great Auntie May for a cuppa & cake. It was like stepping back in time. An Edwardian  lady, with a room,  black satin outfit to match.

Guide camp July 1976- I think that is the year Judith & I slept with mallets by our sleeping bags as we heard ‘prowling nearby by’. We slid slowly down the incline each night  into a squashed pile each night- as the tent site seemed to be on a hill.

I think we had to come home a day early, as we were off on the  YF barge holiday. I can’t think anything more obviously poles apart to girl guides than a mixed holiday of mostly teenagers with alcohol a necessity at ever watering hole.

And so back to other items, memories from mums desk- it seemed fate that I should find the receipt for my wedding dress, which mum had kept on our anniversary.

And a lovely card I must have made at Cransley for xmas on year