Packing Up The Family Home

 

It may be one of the least discussed rites of passage, but is nonetheless loaded with emotional weight - clearing out the family home. 

With our dad having recently moved into a care home and our mum long-since passed, my brother Geoff put together a piece on sorting, sifting and cleaning half-a-century's worth of stuff at the beginning of summer, sometime in the middle of lockdown.

Among the masses of broken ornaments and faded certificates, we also found forgotten treasures and surprising glimpses into the lives of our parents. 

Part family portrait, part meditation on the nature of things and the charge they carry, 'Packing Up The Family Home' serves to remind us of just how far our homes provide the stage upon which so much of the joy and the tragedy of our lives is played out. 

It's not a book, but it's certainly a story that was worth telling. 

First broadcast last Thursday on BBC Radio 4 and now available on the BBC Sounds app.