THE MEMORIES IN MY PARENTS' ATTIC

An unexpected delivery took Rachel Tompkins, 45, back in time

- RACHEL TOMPKINS

Thundering through the back door, I heard a crinkle of bags and then a crash and looked up to see my mum Stephanie, 71, and dad James, 74, walking into my kitchen laden with bin bags and boxes.

‘Your dad's cleaned out the loft!’ Mum declared triumphantly. And that, I knew, was no mean feat, because my parents had lived in the same three-bed house, my childhood home, for going on 40 years, having moved there in 1986 when my sister and I were at primary school. And neither of them like throwing anything away.

‘You never know when you might need it,’ was always Dad's motto. Which means that his garage is currently so crammed with items that you can barely get into it. And for years, his and Mum’s loft has been groaning at the rafters with decades of old baby clothing, toys and keepsakes that, over the years, have been dutifully carried up the ladder by my dad, ‘just in case’.

I'd often joked it was a small wonder that the house hadn't collapsed, there was so much stuff up there!

UNBOXING THE PAST

And now it was January 2025 and I was 44, married and living with my husband and our two sons Rory, 12, and Seb, eight, who were all hurtling into the kitchen to see what was inside the piles of bags and boxes that had just arrived on the kitchen floor.

‘What on earth is all of this?’ my husband gasped, doing a double take.

‘Memories,’ I replied, already rummaging through one of the musty-smelling old bin bags.

Pulling a big, matted, hairy creature out, Rory and Seb screamed. ‘What's that?’ Seb asked, backing away in pure suspicion.

‘It's a Womble!’ I laughed, before breaking into a hum of The Wombling Song. The boys’ faces were a picture of confusion.

‘I suppose they were like the