Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Shredding The Past

As we continue to settle into our new home, I have boxes of junk that have been following me for years. Hiding in cupboards, lurking under beds, etc. They've got a nasty habit of building up - no matter how hard I try to declutter.

A lot of stuff has come out of boxes already, now that my office is set up. I've also eBayed a load of stuff already the last couple of years, and now I've started on some old boxes of things I got from negatives to videos to minidiscs to toys and on. I', doing a big box of documents, receipts and stuff now, and there's some interesting stuff in there that I'm shredding just to make up the space.

Most of it's old receipts and bank statements, but there are a few things that I thought I'd make a note off as aide memoires in the future. I doubt much of it will mean much outside my life, but I want to mark a passing for them for all the same. This stuff all dates from around 1990 to 1998. So, here for your entertainment (or to put you to sleep) is some of the stuff I've shredded.

2 years of wage slips from Tesco in Bangor.
Holiday hotel receipts from our tour of new England in 1997.
A bounced cheque for £208 from the holiday voucher company that went bust whilst we were in New England and unable to use the vouchers.
Various lists of 'import' VHS from the Video Nasties days.
A letter which once had a cheque for £1,700 attached, from the estate of my granddad. He'd kept a secret PEP for his grandchildren on the event of his death - the money really got me out of a hole at the time and if I remember correctly bought the guitar that started Meltwater on its way.
Graduation cards.
Another A4 box binder full of credit card bills and stuff
Student days statements which were mainly in the red.
An essay on Dave McKean from my foundation days, later resubmitted on degree. :D

Other stuff went in the bin. There was a lot of VHS - some of it can be bought on DVD now, others can't but I don't have the time or inclination to watch it again.

Welsh TV stuff - Skip Day In Splott,
Music Video - Channel 4's Velvet Underground Night, South Bank Show Special on Jimi Hendrix, Dancing In The Streets, Slate Special on John Cale, Lou Reed doc.
A carrier bag of negatives from my time in Cornwall, Bangor, Cardiff and more. Most of it was pretty dull stuff.

And of course, there's a few things I just can't bare to shred.

Lots of written correspondence with friends and my wife.
Fancy photos of me in my graduation garb - but I really want too.
Anything remotely involving friends - old VHS, negatives etc.

That'll do for now, but there's plenty more to come soon. I wish I had a lot of time to go through this stuff, but it feels good to be getting rid of it. :)

Posted by Dio Bach at 16:34

1 Comments:

Anonymous said...: Shred it silly!; 2:03 PM