Put in the chat something that you currently collect or have collected as a child.

Pick one of these objects (your own or someone else’s). Imagine that it can talk. Why does it consider itself to be of importance? What does it think of the person who collects it?

By Aoife Mannix

You lay in the hospice under healing hands.

A prayer you learned as a child, the silver charm bracelet

with the tiny gold bottle of Guinness, two soap stone seals

hand carved in the seventies when it was still okay

for the card to read Eskimo. You said, ‘may I be

in heaven half an hour before the devil knows I’m dead’

and laughed at the dark figure in the top hat you had

no time to stop for. A wedding album, a leather covered

copy of Macbeth, a Swedish painting of the sea,

a Russian teapot enamelled with orange chickens.

Your blessings repeated over and over through

that long night when I begged you to be quiet.

Persian faces painted on plates that you haggled

for for hours in a market in the middle of the desert.

A small box bought at the Taj Mahal,

your name on a silver spoon with a palm tree handle,

a black and white photograph of a teenage boyfriend,

a wicker sewing basket. These sacred relics,

these precious talismans, who’s to say they don’t

protect me from the dark?  Though I knew it was

too late to answer your superstitious questions,

I wished I could keep a lock of your coral hair

curled with the poison of chemotherapy.

Or save just one of your fingers

to keep me pointed in the right direction.

I Was Told There'd Be Cake eBook : Crosley, Sloane: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

Write a story about someone who has a secret collection – this could be because they’re embarrassed by it or it could be because it’s illegal, too cute or too sinister.

I've been through so many events with you. You've cried on my fluffy ears so many times they've become thread bare.

I'm still here. Even today you've held me close to comfort you in a time of need. To help with the intense overwhelm.

This creeped me out writing it. It is definitely not autobiographical.

Part 2:There is one tin that has a shelf of it’s own. An old Old Holborn tin. Nice condition, not rusty, but not special. A tin collector wouldn’t give it a second look. She was my first. She was in the seat in front of me on the transatlantic flight, her curly black locks falling around the side of the seat. Nobody bothered her. I wanted to ask for her autograph, but I was too shy. Then I thought of something better. I reached into my carry-on bag and removed a small tin. Not a tobacco tin. A travel sewing kit. I removed the scissors, and cut a lock of her hair, folded it into the tin. When I got home, I put it into a bag, and put it in the tobacco tin.

What makes them get rid of the collection.

Everything changed one Sunday evening when I was watching Antiques Roadshow. A tin collector was showing their favourite tins. And there on screen was my JK Rowling. One thousand pounds!. Then another, Emma Bunting, was worth seven hundred and fifty.
I saw the tins in a new light. I relegated the Old Holborn tin to the bottom of the cabinet, and JK and Emma promoted to the top. Afgter about six months of research I had every tin documented, positioned according to value. I emptied the contents into a paper bag and burned it. Except for Old Holborn. I couldn’t get rid of her.