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Susy Smith reflects on her annual spring clean – the mother of all clear-outs

Ilook forward to my annual deep clean and declutter in March. The cathartic effect of clearing out cupboards and banishing grime always feels like a new beginning. And now, more than ever, we need new beginnings. But this year, for me, it’s not going to be that simple.

It all started when the roof began to leak. We tried to patch it up. Then a length of the old cast-iron guttering fell off, bringing with it the soffit (I am well versed in roofing terms these days). The man who came to look sucked his teeth. “Your slates are flaking,” he explained. It’s hardly surprising: they’re 176 years old. The roof is the original from 1844. Welsh slate laid straight onto wooden battens. No underfelt. You can see daylight through some of the gaps. In the hardest-to-reach places, the only insulation is horsehair. We finally had to step up to the fact that our lovely old roof needed to go.

As is the way of it, one thing led to another. We might as well, we mused, have the loft properly boarded and insulated at the same time. Which means emptying it. And, suddenly, we’ve got a mammoth task on our hands. Looking at the amount of stuff lurking in those darkened depths, you’d never believe we’ve only lived here 11 years. And now it’s all stacked in the sitting room. Every last bit eased through the loft hatch and down the ladder before being carried downstairs. Backbreaking work – and that’s only the start. Now, we’ve got to sort through it all, as we are determined a sizable proportion is not going back up there.

There are boxes and bags, cases and crates. There are lengths of fabric, old lace-trimmed tablecloths crocheted by my grandmother and enough pieces of china to fill an entire emporium. There are backpacks, bed rolls and tents – from my daughters’ festival-going days; a guitar, a flute and two keyboards – from my daughters’ musical days. There are packages of pictures, many years old, bought for walls in houses before this one. Some I don’t even like anymore, but hang on to for old times’ sake. There are sufficient Christmas bits and baubles to deck a thousand halls: we don’t use many of them but, again, all hold memories and I find them almost impossible to part with. Worst of all are the two old cardboard suitcases marked ‘Sentimental stuff ’. I know better than to open these yet: like Pandora’s box, their promise will turn into a curse. I shall get sucked into the collections of past birthday cards and greetings telegrams (who remembers those?). I shall become mesmerised by faded photos, love letters and programmes from school plays and shed tears over drawings by my children when they were little. I shall spend hours poring over it all. And then, unable to get rid of any of it, I shall put it all back in the cases and shut the lids. Sentimentality has a lot to answer for.

The thought briefly crosses my mind that I should emulate Rachel Morris in her excellent book, The Museum Makers, and create my own ‘exhibit’ from all this memorabilia. Perhaps that’s a project for the future.

In the meantime, a lot of it has to go. I know I shall feel so much better when it does. I have only once regretted getting rid of something – a picture that had belonged to my mother. It was a print of a Redouté rose, cut from a magazine and put into a decorative frame that she painted to match the hall in the house where I grew up. A newspaper of the day, in the 1960s, pads the frame out at the back. I donated it, along with several other prints and paintings, to an art sale for a local homeless charity. Then, at the eleventh hour, I rang them and asked for it back. It’s ridiculous really – it’s worth nothing at all. But for me, it conjures such memories of my childhood, when money was short but my mother still kept a stylish home, that I cannot let it go.

The emotional tussles are exhausting. But then a thought spurs me on. When I shuffle off this mortal coil, my poor daughters will be left with the problem. Do I really want them reading my old love letters or feeling guilty about throwing away photobooth pictures of my quirky artschool friends? I must press on. I must be diligent and thorough. I must label what is worth keeping so they know why. Perhaps, one day, they will use some of it to create their own memory boxes. Meanwhile, we have a new roof over our heads. And next year, hopefully all I shall have to do is flit around

with a feather duster.