Nostalgia is only a very small part of my interest in the past. Nostalgia for me is really just that ache for something that's passed and is unreachable in the present except through objects or people or ideas. I'm interested in that feeling but there are many more feelings buried beneath. These objects are much richer than just an ache.
Squished into a folder I found this discoloured fax (not on thermal paper, thank heavens!) from 2001. It has the Bristol fax number on the top from our Human Resources department. And the next few pages reveal for me all of the pain and restriction and frustration of working in a bureacracy. I can't even read most of them without having to put it down and go and do something violently physical to shake the trauma out of me.
I never want to be subjected to "Targets" again. Neither do I want to subject anyone else to them
I had no idea that what was in these boxes were a key to what's still deep within me.