The kids have inherited my instinct for hoarding – but not my desire for order

By instinct, I am a hoarder. There are various drawers in our house which contain all sort of bits and bobs – some useful, some less so. And in a cupboard under the eaves there are at least two large crates full of school projects and certificates and photos from 30 years ago. Somewhere, there is a shoe box with a thousand Panini football stickers in it – swaps dating from 1985 to 1994. I must have at least a dozen Gary Linekers.

At least all this stuff is pretty well hidden – out of sight, out of mind. I’m also terrible about ever getting rid of books, however, even ones I’ve started and didn’t much enjoy. And most of my books are very much not hidden. Instead, they’re squeezed into over-filled bookshelves, on ledges and in piles (albeit neat ones).

Occasionally, my wife will initiate a book cull and will produce 10 of hers to go to the charity shop. I will wander around the house, before finally alighting on a thin paperback which was a gift from someone who didn’t realise I’m terrified of ghost stories. Even parting with that will be a struggle, but at least I’ve made a contribution. The gap on the shelf won’t remain unfilled for long though.

My children both seem to have inherited the same tendency, especially my daughter. And in an outrageous display of hypocrisy, it drives me up the wall.

On Wednesday, I picked up my daughter’s coat, which had been deposited on the floor when she came home from school, and wondered why it was so heavy. I turned out the pockets to find: three large stones (smooth and pearly white); five shells (all limpets); two empty packets of cough sweets; four loose cough sweets which had escaped the packets; several scraps of tin foil and tissue paper; and the torn tip of some novelty cat mittens.

The obvious rubbish went straight into the bin, along with the cough sweets, which I guessed had been rattling around for at least two months. When I enquired about the stones and shells, my daughter explained that she had picked them up from a Welsh beach a fortnight ago, during our half-term visit to my brother. They could neither be thrown away, nor removed to the garden. As for the remnant of the glove, there was genuine shock at the prospect of it being ditched, such is the sentimental value apparently attached to it.

For the next 24 hours, these precious mementoes remained stridently unmoved on the kitchen worktop, until I finally gave my daughter an ultimatum – take them to your room, or they go out with the trash. So upstairs they went, to join the many other knick-knacks that line her bookshelves, window ledge, bedside table, desk and chest of drawers in a higgledy-piggledy sort of way.

I suspect all these objects would irritate me less if they were displayed more neatly: we may both be collector-hoarders, but my daughter hasn’t inherited my desire for order. Occasionally, we have put all hands to work, clearing all surfaces so they can at least be dusted, before the ornaments, the trinkets and the tat are replaced. From time to time, agreement might be reached that a particular item has come to the end of its useful life, or can be dispatched because nobody can remember its origin.

But for the most part, my daughter is determined that all her things have meaning; they are pieces of her life. And given my own similar tendencies, I am really in no position to argue. In any case, as I watch Ukrainian children fleeing war with merely a bagful of belongings, I realise that our good fortune can manifest itself in many ways, even ones that superficially annoy me.