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"Oh, they must have been proud of me after all!"

After her mother dies, Clare Jenkins explores the practical and emotional difficulties of clearing out her parents' home. Clare and her siblings have to decide which of their parents' possessions they should keep, and what to let go. Clare talks to Guardian writer Deborah Orr, who faced the same dilemma a couple of years earlier, and Times columnist Robert Crampton has been going through the process this year. What is important to keep at such a time? Is it the letters, diaries and photos, or the expensive, but disliked, heirlooms? Which objects seem pathetic, when removed of meaning? What emotions surface during the clearing-out process?

First broadcast on A Casual Clearance, 3 October 2016.

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Duration:

5 minutes

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