Stash In The Attic

Olly Mann goes stationery shopping but finds himself on an unexpected trip down memory lane instead…

It all started because I wanted a lever arch file. Generally I’m more of a box file man, but a new project is generating a significant stack of notes in sub-categories, thereby screaming out for a chunky folder and colourful dividers. So, off I trotted to WHSmith—relishing not only the distraction, but also the opportunity to snap up a discounted Mary Berry book and two-for-one pack of Sharpies—when suddenly I remembered: Mum’s attic.

Stored away in her ceiling rafters are a dozen lever arch files, most embellished with a gold University of Oxford logo, containing notes from my undergraduate degree. When I shoved them up there in 2002, I thought they might be required for my forthcoming literary career; surely, it would only be a matter of months before I again had cause to reference my notes on Chaucerian dialect and the contribution of immigration to mutual intelligibility. (Instead, my first graduate job was researching a show for ITV about gobby estate agents).