'It's a vunder (wonder) she never slung you kids out too' was the answer my grandmother always gave when my sister and I demanded that she 'tell us about when we were little'.This was our favourite question, way ahead of 'Tell us about the olden days nanny', 'Have you got any sweets' and 'Is Grandad dead?'.
This final question wasn't as brutal as it sounds in retrospect. It was asked by we children as a result of his habit of taking long, silent afternoon naps, during which you couldn't tell whether he was breathing or not. And Nanny's concerned response was always the same 'Daddy! Daddy! Stop it! You're scaring the kinder (children)'.
But back to the whole point..........................
My mother, for all her many good points (and there are many), has never been what you'd describe as sentimental. In fact, she's the human equivalent of a wrecking ball slamming into a beautiful, but no longer practical, Victorian building. Unlike me, she doesn't feel the need to hold on to things for the sake of having them, or because they hold fond memories, or even purely because they're pleasing to the eye. She likes the 'working surfaces' of her life to be clear of clutter and ready for action. Unnecessary obstacles only hinder her ability to sweep down like a vast Sioux war party, armed with a duster and can of furniture polish, onto the unsuspecting covered wagons ambling across the prairie, scattering bonnetted women and children in her wake, and emerging with bloodied scalps ready to be cleared out to make 'more space'.
However, we could never work out what she wanted this 'more space' for. As children, the idea of more space meant that it could be filled with precious things, or at least things which were precious to us. But, unfortunately for we treasure-hoarding children, the only thing precious to my mother was empty space. Shelves, stripped naked and polished daily to an almost scientific shine, and cupboards whose emptiness echoed every time they were opened or closed.
Things fell into only one of two categories 'used' and 'not used', usually the latter. 
In order to be classified as 'used', it was necessary for something to be touched by a human hand (ideally ours) at least once every week, even more for some things. I'm not sure how she achieved it, but throughout our childhood, my mother used some kind of sophisticated detection system which could tell when a much-loved toy had last been played with, or when that poster of David Essex had last been gazed at. Anything failing 'the test' would be immediately and mercilessly stripped from the wall, or would just simply 'disappear'. So efficient was her system of removal, that it was almost as if they'd been beamed up into space by aliens in front of our eyes. One minute they would be there, and the next.............vanished into thin air. At a rough guess at least half of all sentences uttered during my childhood began with 'Has anyone seen my.............?'
Unless of course, it happened to be an old musical video, or more recently a DVD.
They say that every man (and woman) has their vice, and my mother's one weakness is musicals from the 1920's an 30's. To this day, the only thing guaranteed to make my mother go weak at the knees, apart from sheer exhaustion, is the sight of the perma-tanned Howard Keel, gazing at her longingly from across the span of time. Teary-eyed Anne Margaret, tinkling yet another corny love song about her bloody 'poor broken heart'. And of course, at the head of this grainy black and white army. Ginger fucking Rogers!
