Helping the kids with a clearout is a conflicting business

Books and toys may have fallen from favour, but Will Gore struggles to let go

Will Gore can’t lego: parting with the ‘embodiment of a memory’ is all too much (Getty Images)

By instinct, I am a collector – some would say hoarder. When challenged about it, I’ll explain that you just never know when something might come in handy, or might need to be referred back to. And sure enough, I have many lever-arch files of old documents, and a tool box full of all sorts of bits and pieces. The garden shed houses such varied items as a partially cracked water pistol, a paint-spattered set of coat hooks and several off cuts of timber. It’s enough for The A-Team to fashion a half-decent tank, and enough for me to wonder how I’ll be able to put the lawn mower away.

But if I claim utility as my primary excuse for hanging onto things, sentimentality actually plays an equal role. When I was a child, I hated throwing anything away in case it somehow sullied or dulled a memory to which the item was attached; and since I was lucky enough to have a big bedroom, I could simply stack things on shelves or cram them under my bed. I had knickknacks and mementos, but also old school books and rail tickets. You name it, I kept it.

Yet the challenging counterpoint to my hoarding predisposition is that I don’t like mess. Whereas my parents’ home had oodles of storage – allowing books, bumph and paraphernalia to be tucked away neatly – my own is significantly smaller. So, once every cupboard, shelving unit and wardrobe is full up fit to burst, the conundrum is whether to find things to ditch, or to simply turn into one of those people you watch on Channel 5 documentaries who hasn’t seen their kitchen sink since 1996.