Good heavens. I was just going on about how women in the north of England speak their mind, but they obviously do it wherever that lady comes from too.
It is fantastic that Bob's case inspires such strong emotions. I think maybe because most of us heard fairytales when we were young, when dreams always came true and there was always a happy ending or a right ending. And Bob and Fontelle's was a fairytale, and it just seems such an outrage and cruel tragedy that the happy ending was snatched away just when it seemed the last page of the book had been reached.
Talking of happy endings - the hoarder's house I cleared, that I mentioned earlier. Everything was filthy, of little value and had to be trashed. He was peacefully deceased at a very advanced age and there was nobody who wanted to touch his things, let alone take them home. I thought it was a shame - every step of an entire life, every document (even his parents' too) had been carefully hoarded since the beginning of the last century and it had to be thrown away, as though he'd never existed.
Well, that was the theory. Which I also subscribed to. I just couldn't actually do it. I spent hours sorting, scrubbing, disinfecting while berating myself. I'm no hoarder myself, I didn't know what to do with that 'life', I didn't know the man, and I definitely didn't have time. I thought I needed my head testing, though Mr Z was more charitable, the dear.
This weekend, a lovely man knocked on my door. He's struggled for a long time to set up a little museum, and has finally succeeded. "And was there," he wondered, "any possibility there was anything in that old house we could have?"
He was thrilled with what I saved. That 'valueless' stuff has become very valuable indeed (in terms of local history, not money). That old man's life that was destined for the trash will now teach the children of the future about the past.
There's probably a lesson there somewhere, but I don't know what it is. I just know I'm thrilled; for myself and one lost and lonely hoarder, deceased.
