Well: I certainly have a load of stuff. I have just about finished the inventory of our things I mentioned in my last post. There are a few more bits to add, but things are pretty well in order now. So, if we pop our clogs tomorrow our family will have some idea of what it might be worth their while pausing before chucking the rest away. It has been a thought-provoking process.
I was looking at an article this evening about the sculpture collection at Wilton House when it occurred to me to ask, “Am I a ‘collector’?” Does the inventory of which I am now so proud represent a “collection”? Or is it just a heap of things? What is the difference?
Two aspects of the situation have inclined me to think that I really should not be called a “collector” of art (or of anything else.) Surely the defining feature of a collection is that it is the result of a series of deliberate actions directed at acquiring the objects in question. In our case, however, the things we have acquired have arrived largely because other people have decided to give them to us. Whereas we are delighted to be able to enjoy the results of their generosity the “collection” tells us more about the extreme diversity of the kind of people we have acquired as friends and family than it says about us. (Yes: we have some curious friends!)
Additionally, I think that I am debarred from ever being a proper “collector” by deeply-rooted temperament. As I began to write this blog a memory from my childhood came into my head out of the blue. When I was a kid in Nelson (in Lancashire, not New Zealand!) I was enrolled in the “Life Boys”. (This is the junior version of the Boys’ Brigade, much as Cubs stand in relation to Scouts.) Activity seemed to be organised around work towards a series of badges of achievement. My involvement in this was desultory to say the least. There was, I remember, a “Collector’s Badge”. I think that I was persuaded to begin collecting stamps, but if I ever did pursue it far enough to actually get the badge I can’t remember. Collecting has always seemed to me to be a singularly pointless activity.
I do have to admit that I accumulate things, but this is a different matter. In the cellar I have the materials for a moderately impressive museum of climbing equipment, including (for those who appreciate these things) a D-ring belt and an original Whillans Harness. I think that there are four different climbing ropes in different states of wear and tear, and my original “bone-dome” helmet. There is no way, however, in which I would say I “collect” climbing gear. In a similar way I have probably got sets of pastels from at least six different manufacturers, but they just seem to have arrived somehow.
So: no! I am not a collector. But, ye gods! I never realised before just how much stuff we have accumulated.