With my aunt and uncle back in the country and staying locally in the run up to Nans memorial next Thursday. They have been able to help Mum and me get on with sorting out Nans belongings.

It’s been a hard thing to do. Not just physically but emotionally as well. However it has been that emotional side that has been the main stumbling block over the past nearly two years preventing Mum and I making much progress with Nans stuff.

Even with my aunt and uncle here helping. It’s not been easier on that front. But it’s helped to have some-one else to share the burden with. We made some real headway over the last two days.

Whilst sorting out what stuff goes to the dump, charity, or to keep we came across a box that quite clearly was mine.

Inside this cardboard time vault were treasures that took me back to my teenage years and the early days of the British Home Computer boom.

If you remember when I wrote about playing the latest MtG set, The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth I shared about my history with Tolkien and when I first came across Middle-Earth.

Well colour me pleasantly surprised (whatever that colour is) when I opened up the box and inside were my copies of The Hobbit (Oric-1 version) and Lord of the Rings Game One (C64 version). Minus the respective paperback books.

Also inside this treasure trove of memories were the following three items pictured in the gallery below.

The Simon’s Basic was a cartridge for the C64 that allowed you to use a more powerful version of Basic on the machine.

It was this version of Basic that I wrote a game to teach the Green Cross Code for my O-Level computing project in.

It’s the project I also rewrote completely the night before it was due to be handed in. I did an all nighter. I was young. Didn’t know better.

I hadn’t realised what an impact I’d made with the game or my coding skills until decades later when my school friend Jon Ward returned to the UK for a visit. When we met up he remembered all this, bringing up the game and how good I was in the computing lessons. It was very flattering.

Author probably has the honour of being the first ever word processor I ever owned and used!

Finally the official Commodore modem for the C64. Mum and Dad got me that for Christmas. A decision they would later regret. Later being three months later when that quarters phone bill came in.

You see Mum and Dad had no idea what a modem was or that it used the phone line.

Try and imagine one morning waking up. That days post dropping through the letterbox before 8am. Yeah that’s how far back we’ve gone to a functioning, reliable (well compared todays offering) postal service. Opening up the post and seeing a bill from BT for over three pounds.

Yeah I’d hit the phone pretty hard. I’d developed a serious Compunet habit downloading demoes etc.

Well Mum and especially Dad were more than a little pissed off. Getting Dad angry was the quickest way to lowering your life expectancy.

Obviously my online activities were seriously curtailed from that point on.

But it was Nan that really saved my bacon (as she has always done). She let Mum and Dad have the money to help with the phone bill I’d rung up with the modem.

There were other gems in the box too. But I’ll save them for another day.