Hoarding

I am, by nature, a hoarder. I'm one of those people who can't bear to throw things away 'just in case'.

Thankfully, the limited space available in Groanin' Towers, and Mrs Wife's more ruthless streak, mean that I amn't now surrounded by great piles of what I would call valuable possessions, but that others would term 'useless crap'.

Inspired by this post at Erica's site, I recalled a hoarder of even greater ability than even myself.

Edmund Trebus, the most famous star of the TV show A Life of Grime, was one of those rare people who was happy to live his life in the way in which he chose, regardless of how it was perceived by others around him.

Upon his death, a lengthy obituary in The Guardian said:

'At first, his obsession took the form of mild eccentricity. He filled the upstairs rooms of his four-storey Victorian house with the spoils of hunts through local builders' skips and junk shops. One room was packed with vacuum cleaners, another with cameras. Trebus bought every recording he could find by Elvis Presley.

'As time passed and his children moved out, the collections piled one on top of the other, like sedimentary layers, until each room was full to the ceiling. Trebus would push a small cart around the streets of Crouch End, gathering discarded building materials, which he carefully arranged in the garden, doors in one corner, windows in another. There were washing machines, wood, motorcycles and bicycles. There was even one of musician Dave Stewart's old synthesisers, retrieved from the back of his recording studio. Like all the objects, it came to be forgotten about and covered up over time.'

I can imagine that, left to my own devices in my dotage, I could become a 21st century Edmund Trebus. Whilst I may not have a penchent for discarded doors and windows, I could seriously see myself surrounded by vast mountains of magazines and newspapers, CDs and DVDs.

I can imagine this all too well, as Mrs Wife and I have begun the process of emptying Groanin' Towers ahead of our move eastwards. And in every nook and cranny, under every bed and in every wardrobe, piles of magazines wait for the day when they will once again be read.

Perhaps the most worrying aspect is that, in our quest to find New Groanin' Towers (or Dungroanin'), Mrs Wife and I are looking at properties with twice as many rooms as our current abode - which is room for a LOT more magazines.