I’m an unhappy shopaholic

When I was a child I had a dream, as most kids do, of entering a toyshop and being told I could carry away with me as much as would fit in a large shopping trolley. In would go every kind of Action Man, every game of Buckaroo or Operation, and enough Star Wars figurines to people a small planet. There would be no discriminating and no sense of moderation – just a great tottering tower of swag.

Later though, as I got into my thirties, I took a more spartan approach. I wished for a slimmed down, uncluttered life in which everything counted. Without necessarily knowing it, I agreed with William Morris’s adage: ‘Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.’ I gave things away and had regular dematerialisation sessions, in which clothes I never wore and books I never read would go straight to the charity shop, shops I half-felt should be charging me a fee for freeing up my shelf and floor space.