Are you a hoarder like me Do you keep the stubs of concert tickets, and the tiny bottles of apricot jam from aeroplane flights

Rummaging through my cupboards for the staple gun, I had a fit of madness because of all the creative clutter I manage to hide from HeeHoo.

And then it suddenly hit me, what if I died tomorrow and the kids were left to clear the house up after me Imagine their horror when they come across some of the ataxophobic objects in the cupboards!!

I not only have my old dolly Mary, a wee moth-eaten china doll with stiff petticoats and a cracked face, cradled in a cluster of tissue paper marked 'Sanders Ltd!': but I also have Lucy, the doll belonging to She Who Must Run and Snoopy and E T, the soft toys belonging to She Who Must Wear Kevlar!! Lucy's toes were chewed off by a rat at Sijarira once but Jo was so smitten with Lucy that love was totally blind!

There is so much junk in my cupboards that I cringe at the thought of leaving this precious debris for someone else to clear out. And with Spring here what better time to spring clean!!

It did not take long for me to get super discouraged, I mean who on earth could bring themselves to throw away perfectly good old school reports I not only have the children' school reports, but I also have a complete set of my own and my brother Gavin's, dating back to KG 1 at Hillside School !! A happy hour was passed as I browsed tearfully, remembering how angelic were the girls in our family, and how boisterous the boys!! Gavin was so used to getting 'caned' at Milton Junior School that he always wore his swimming costume under his shorts to deflect the blows!!

Poems from Eisteddfods were all there too, hundreds of them, all worth a few tears of pride as well as magnificent artwork right from KG1 up to Sixth Form, one day when the girls are famous I am going to auction them and make a fortune!!

Certificates for gymnastics and high board diving belonging to Josie (she was the athletic one), LAMDA certificates for speech and drama and singing awarded to Robs (she was the arty one). I am sure all Moms have a florilegium of carefully stored kiddies mementoes

Photographs !! Apart from those carefully stored electronically, we have dozens of photo albums, with the photos neatly affixed with this funny little black three cornered triangular thingys, many of the photos curling and faded but still discernible as special memories from many halcyon years gone by. How could one possibly throw away such glorious moments The hairstyles were worth a few moments of mirth, and the padded shoulders but all in all they are more precious to a Mom than anything else.

HeeHoo is possibly an even more of an ardent magpie than I am, except that his collection is of gadgets and 'Toys for Big Boys'!! He is also a book collector and we have a vast library of books, encyclopedias, boxed sets, that all sit forlornly gathering dust while we both read books on our iPads!!

We have files and files of clippings, newspaper cuttings, scientific journals (those belong to HeeHoo who is a microbiologist), mine are just cuttings from days gone by of radio and TV fame. Old radio scripts, old TV scripts, my very first new Bulletin signed by my Producer (now we are going back 40 odd years), why earth do I still keep them I wonder foolishly.

There, glaring at me malevolently, is Granny's rosewood display cabinet, complete with elegant Queen Anne Legs and artfully lit with mirrors, it is jam packed with objets d'art that I love and hate at the same time. At least the silver does not need cleaning, kept in a sterile environment and I am sure there are items that a collector would give his eye teeth for!! Beautiful antiques like an ivory and worked filigrees gold hall marked baton that was presented to my Great Aunt - 'the Conductress Mrs Maggie Edwards Hardy by the Machen Ladies Choir January 24 1908 as a slight token of their appreciation'. A tiny elegant toothpick holder exquisitely engraved, a mother of pearl holder for crochet hooks, and many other beautiful mementoes of a more graceful era.

I know Treasure Pleasures needs these items to sell for the Old People, but somehow I just cant bear to part with them, what will the Girls do, I muse, when the time comes to dispose of Mum's 'odds and sods' I wonder if they will carry the same sentimental weight with these Modern Young Misses

Why am I so mawkish about this miscellany of flotsam and jetsam I itch to have a good clear out, but something primeval is holding me back..