My mother used to mend, I can clearly remember that it wasn’t a favourite pass time but it was a necessity. When the bed sheets were getting a bit thin they were cut down the middle and the outside edges sewn together to get another year or two out of them. Elbows and knees were patched (that’s the elbows and knees of our clothes not our bodies), socks were darned, crockery glued, shoes repaired and toys fixed. Things weren’t thrown away until they were well and truly broken beyond repair and definitely not replaced just because they were no longer in fashion.

When our kids were little I would mend their long pants by sewing appliquéd animals onto the worn knees, much cuter than a patch that matched. Steve darned his own socks once or twice, using pink wool on black socks so he could point out to his Mother that he had to do his own mending. Once she had stopped feigning interest he just wore them with holes, but at least he didn’t just throw them out.

I’m not suggesting that we return to the austere methods of my Mum’s time but we really could do better. We can replace buttons and fix hems and glue perfectly good soles back onto perfectly good shoes rather than throw them out. I have to admit to having a favourite pair of Levis that I just can’t part with, on a recent camping trip the bum just gave way so I put a patch on the inside and machine sewed backwards and forwards and gave them a new lease on life though I can’t put anything in the back pocket because I sewed it up. My mum would not be impressed.

If you can’t mend broken crockery at least keep the rest of the set, mismatched table settings could be classed as shabby chic and bring back memories of where the pieces came from and how the others got broken, clumsy kids, missed your husband and hit the wall, good conversation starters at family gatherings.

My husband is a mender of appliances and garden tools and children’s bikes and other toys that he picks up from council rubbish collections to restore for when the grandkids come to stay. His fixing does impress my Mum, she once said “it doesn’t only work right it sounds right when Stephen fixes it” the ultimate compliment for someone who never throws anything away in case he can use it to fix something. He should have been a farmer or at least have a shed as big as a farm shed to keep everything in.

In these hard economic times that they keep reminding us about I suggest we set aside a shelf for things that need to be fixed and mended and get stuck into it whenever we find ourselves with nothing to do.