boxes in all shapes and sizes

Mum loved boxes. I never knew this until it gradually dawned on me after moving her into a new house and seeing containers of all ages and shapes and sizes, that for decades she has been keeping the boxes that things came in. Things? Well, yes - things going back years - cigars (dad's), biscuits, chocolates, drawing pins, cosmetics, thread, paper clips, elastic, toiletries, stationery, envelopes, jewellery, phew! everything!

What a lovely way to remember a present long since used - 'that's the box that my Christmas present from Juliet came in'. Those white choc chip cookies were certainly gorgeous and wicked, and the beautiful tall art nouveau tin box that Juliet had found in some classy shop, adorned with pretty sensuous ladies in Alphonse Mucha style, carries the memory. How can I possibly throw that one away? Well, I haven't - it's mine, with its triple connections, mum, Juliet and gorgeous biscuits.

Not only did she keep these useful and often very attractive cardboard, plastic and metal containers, but she put new and different things in them. Mum was a fervent recycler when it comes to containers. Probably a throw-back to the war years when everything had to be kept and re-used due to shortages of new things. Not a bad philosophy. Mum was certainly not of a throw-away mentality.

Sometimes the boxes were elevated in status - I have a beautiful green velvet box with a hinged, jewelled and sequinned lid - full of precious jewels of mine - that mum created out of one of my dad's cardboard cigar boxes in about 1971, Mum would see the potential in a container, and lovingly refurbish it so we could put exquisite things of our own into her exquisite creation.

There's a delightful 1940s cigarette box made of a very shiny and heavy gold metal, with a hinged lid that makes a loud metallic clunk! when you let go. It has sat on sideboards and lamp tables and coffee tables for as long as I can remember. It used to have cigarettes in about 40 years ago, till my dad gave up smoking, then it had drawing pins and useful small items.

Latterly it held books of stamps and the odd safety pin. Now I have it and I'm looking for a way to give it a new lease of life by giving it something suitably weighty to carry. Haven't decided yet, but it's got so many memories it needs a special role. What I do know is it was given to mum and dad as a wedding present in 1948, quite a luxury in those days of restraint and deprivation.

One of the most heart-breaking items to deal with after mum's death was her ziggurat-shaped pull-out wooden sewing box, tiered so that you could pull it to each side and display everything all at once. Well, the memories tumble from every item in there - the gold thread that she used to embroider table linen, the heavy button thread that she sewed our coat buttons on with, the elastic thread that kept in the ribs of jumpers that had gone wide in the wash, and literally dozens of colours of thread used to sew up my dresses, her skirts, jackets, curtains, holiday tops, machine-embroidered table cloths, medieval frocks and gifts for others, like oven gloves and aprons.

These bobbins of thread have the names of their exotic colours written on them should you need a second bobbin - from plain old turquoise to wheat, gay green, silver blue, erin green, salmon and even variegated colours. Now of course it's all no.3176 or 297, not very evocative at all.

And then at the bottom of the all-encompassing sewing box is a small, innocuous red plastic box and inside a little roll of embroidered tape - 'hand made by Sarah Jane'. Enough to make me shut the box fast, keep all the memories in there for now.