Why do we keep some things, but ditch others?

I was Prompted reflect as I ate my boiled eggs this morning.

That small chipped egg cup was given to me when I was about three years old. For some reason it has survived numerous house moves, spring cleans and periodic purges of things that remind me of a childhood I’d prefer to forget. I cannot remember who gave me the egg cup, or exactly when, but rather like my hands or my face, it has always been there, but unlike my hands or my face, it has not grown old over time, but remained just the same.

It doesn’t often leave the drawer, but for some reason I chose to use it today. Perhaps because I’ve recently turned 70, and getting old makes one think back to when we were very young. My most recent book Where are the Fellows who Cut the Hay which we will relaunch in March when a paperback edition is published, contains much about my early life, as well as interviews with grandchildren of those whose stories George Ewart Evans wrote in his books about Suffolk’s rural past.

My next book Down to Earth, which will be published next July, looks at how our relationship with soil has evolved, not always in helpful ways. I can see a theme emerging as I begin to plan another book, which will probably be published in 2027. My starting point for that will to be to read a book I’ve had for more than 40 years and never opened. My father bought as he worked for Barclays Bank for more than 35 years.

Hidden within its pages I know I will find the inspiration that will lead to another book that looks at our past, and suggests how the experience of earlier generations can help us make sense of the future.

Perhaps, as I move though my eighth decade, I will find more from my own past, that will prompt me to write books that I hope others will find useful. I’m not sure there’s a book to be written about my childhood egg cup, but getting it out from the back of a kitchen drawer was a good way to start this day.