Clearing out the house

Radio 4 does have some little gems amid its middle aged and middle class programming. Today was a case in point, Clearing Out The House,was a moving half hour of interviews with the adult children of the recently deceased. It covered the trials and tribulations encountered when children have to sort through parents' belongings at a time of mourning, and most of the stories recounted, I could relate to.
Sorting out a lifetime of memories is often a rather sad experience, yet I cannot remember being that melancholy when I had to empty my mother's home. I never lived in her small town house in Prestatyn, so I guess that fact gave me some emotional distance from the task in hand, but I do remember finding simple every day objects that brought some sweet childhood memories flooding back.
A well used dairy cookery book, some vintage cake tins and and a large enamel jam pan, all reminded me of cooking days in the sixties, a time when mums didn't all go out to work, and "pinnies" were worn when you did the baking. Cakes and pies were banged out as routine, and it suddenly dawned on me , just why my memories were so positive.I was not just remembering my Mother, but I was refreshing old snapshots of my Grandmother, who always helped out with the chores when we were growing up.
Food, cooking and baking was as necessary to Gran as breathing.She used food to reinforce her affection for people.You were loved and you were fed......it is a simple and very effective way of behaving and it gives children a life long love of food and eating.
I still have AND USE these kitchenalia items and with the one addition of a decorative wall plate, they were the only things I kept from my parents' home.
Funny what you find important.........

Picture ( New tulips in the front garden.......funny I don't remember planting them)