The Concealed Revealed: the ‘Afterlives’ of Hidden Objects in the Home

Extract

The shoe lives in a Fox’s biscuit tin in the pantry. Its custodian is Laura, a media-relations manager at the University of East Anglia, from the United States but currently living in a Norfolk village with her husband and two young sons. She wants to keep the shoe safe from pets, children and the elements, but has plans to display it in the future: perhaps in a glass case with pride of place on the mantelpiece. When Laura does take the shoe out of the tin, she does so gingerly, tentatively, and while she enjoys showing it to visitors, who are often eager to see it, she worries about its preservation. ‘I thought it’s probably quite delicate so it needs somewhere quite safe and tucked away’, she told me. ‘That said, my children are absolutely enthralled with it as well, they love it… They’re very good, they won’t go and play with it, but they do like to bring it out and tell people about it.’ Laura smiles as she admits, ‘It is my best party trick so far and I have just gone to town with the shoe story. It’s going to be my living legacy’.