Tonight:
4°c
I can never walk by a skip without peering inside. There's something so tempting about those big yellow tubs that bulge cheekily out from a row of parked cars brimming with furniture, fridges, luggage, electrical goods (vacuum cleaners seem to be particularly popular but, trust me, they don't work), carpets, clothes and mysterious kitchenware.
Being a writer, I sometimes find inspiration in skips, too.
Sometimes I stop and pull something out for inspection, thinking "The things people throw away". Couldn't I use that avocado-coloured bath?
There's a matching basin, too. Maybe not. But that wooden chair would be ideal for the garden - it just needs to be painted green.
OK, I've already got two waiting to be painted, but that's the thing about stuff you find in skips - it's not the object as it is now, which is generally broken or useless, it's the potential.
Yes, it takes a special kind of person to see the potential in a bunk bed ladder with only two rungs left.
When I was a student I lived in the East End where whole streets were being cleared for new housing and people's entire lives ended up in skips.
Not just household paraphernalia, but things someone must once have treasured - vinyl records, postcards from long-ago holidays, sepia photographs of long-dead people smiling so confidently.
I have on my mantelpiece a photograph that came from a skip in Bow of four children, a girl, two boys and a baby.
Their clothes are scruffy, the shoes scuffed. They look so happy. I often wonder whether their adult lives lived up to the promise of that photo.
I still have bits of furniture and crockery from my skipping days (in the US they call it dumpster diving). Nowadays skipping has become unfashionable as we pride ourselves on buying the latest of everything and discard the old without a qualm.
Sometimes our discards make their way to a charity shop, but not always. The students who live next door to me pile all their stuff into the wheelie-bins at the end of every year - books, clothes, crockery and kitchenware, mounds of uneaten food, bits of electronic hardware.
It all goes into landfill. And then a new lot come along next year and do exactly the same.
My parents would have been horrified. They came from a generation where everything was saved, repaired, recycled.
My Dad was the sort of person who could see the potential in those two-rung bunk bed ladders - in fact he had a whole shed full of bits of wood with potential; Mum had balls of wool unravelled from worn-out sweaters, waiting to be reknitted. They never thought of themselves as poor, and I sometimes wonder whether they'd got it right.
Maybe we don't need new stuff all the time. Maybe, like them, we can save and repair and recycle.
An open skip is a positive invitation to recycle. When I had a clearout recently I found that much of the stuff I put into the skip disappeared during the day, then overnight the skip filled up again, with other people's stuff.
I even rescued some of it myself. Yes, I know it's bad for the economy but I tell myself it's just what the planet needs.
A few years ago, an old lady in my street died, and her personal effects, including photographs, clothes and many boxes of out-of-date chocolates, were put in a skip.
She was connected to a well-known clothing family, and some of the hats and shoes from the Forties and Fifties were truly fabulous.
They're in my attic now, waiting for a more suitable home - and that gave me the idea for a story
Marina Lewycka's new novel, We Are All Made of Glue, starts in a skip and is published today by Penguin.
Reader views (4)
You're right, throwing away usable stuff into skips is obscene, but it gives other people the chance to do a bit of treasure hunting. In the absence of a skip, try your local council tip for a recycling fix. Ours is a veritable Aladdin's cave.
Absolutely loving 'All made of glue',hanging on to the last couple of chapters. Superb characterisation. In fact Marina's books are 3 of the best I've read.
- Mary Evans, heathfield, sussex, uk, 23/03/2010 09:22
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Taking anything from a skip is theft!
- Phil, Fareham England, 21/07/2009 12:32
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I love your writing Marina!
I'm an unashamed skip-browser, and when I had my loft converted I stuck the old cold water tank in the skip outside. A chap knocked on the door and asked if he could have it as a plunge pool for watering cans down his allotment, I said no worries, you'd be doing me a favour. If you lurk around expensive parts of London you can get some smashing stuff out of skips, but always ask. On the other hand, I saw a skip with a dirty great fridge freezer dumped in it. The skip owner had put a forlorn poem on the side of the fridge freezer:
'Oh, Mr Fridge Dumper, you came in the night and used our skip for your rubbish, what an unkind thing to do!'
How sad, and funny at the same time.
- Sally Edinburgh, Whitechapel, 21/07/2009 11:32
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Sounds like a minor habitual disorder to me, from people that have never wanted for anything in life expressing an inner expression of to be repentant as a boy a grew up placing cardboard in my shoes to cover the holes I know first what junk people have I wore it. I suggest if you can afford to buy your own belonging do so and leave this skip stuff to people who really need it.
- Jerry, Chiswick, 21/07/2009 11:32
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