{"id":14254,"date":"2026-05-15T14:46:04","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T14:46:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maturingwell.co.uk\/?p=14254"},"modified":"2026-05-15T14:46:04","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T14:46:04","slug":"selling-the-family-silver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maturingwell.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/15\/selling-the-family-silver\/","title":{"rendered":"Selling the family silver"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"This
This is the jar which was full of reclaimed silver<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We are selling the family silver. \u00a0Yes, really \u2014 it\u2019s gone. \u00a0And, as is often the case in our lives, there\u2019s a slightly quirky story behind it.<\/p>\n

The phrase \u201cselling the family silver\u201d became popular during the years when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher<\/span><\/span> was privatising large parts of Britain\u2019s public services. From memory, British Telecom was one of the first. Perhaps the politics of all that is a debate for another day.<\/p>\n

In our case, however, the phrase became unexpectedly literal.<\/p>\n

While sorting through even more old belongings, we came across a jar of silver. \u00a0Inside were odd little blobs of varying sizes, gradually reducing down to fine dust. \u00a0Rachel\u2019s parents had both worked in a laboratory \u2014 in fact, that\u2019s where they met. \u00a0Back in the 1950s, silver nitrate solution was used in the lab and, when discarded, employees were allowed to take it away. My in-laws extracted the silver, stored it in a jar, and left it in the cellar, where it sat untouched for decades.<\/p>\n

Recently, we took it along to one of those \u201cwe buy gold and silver\u201d events \u2014 the sort where a company hires a village hall and people arrive clutching old watches, jewellery, and heirlooms in the hope of leaving with a bit of cash.<\/p>\n

When we presented our mysterious jar of silver, the staff looked slightly baffled. \u00a0Apparently nobody had ever brought in silver quite like this before.<\/p>\n

It was highly entertaining watching one employee point what looked suspiciously like a Star Trek laser device at the contents of the jar. The tests revealed the material wasn\u2019t completely pure silver, and they explained that more detailed analysis would be needed before they could value it properly.<\/p>\n

So, taking something of a leap of faith, we handed it over.<\/p>\n

Today we heard back. A price was agreed, the negotiation concluded, and the money transferred into our bank account. \u00a0Wonderful!<\/p>\n

So, while the phrase \u201cselling the family silver\u201d might alarm our daughters, they can rest assured we haven\u2019t recklessly sold off some priceless family heirloom for peanuts, never to be seen again.<\/p>\n

Unlike, perhaps, many of our public services.<\/p>\n

And since I raised the subject earlier, this probably is the moment to admit how much I deplore the way successive Conservative governments sold off so many national services, only for many of them to deteriorate over time. Just think of the Post Office and Royal Mail, along with water, gas, electricity, railways, and even prisons. \u00a0The list seems endless.<\/p>\n

I understand the original argument for privatisation: giving ordinary people the opportunity to buy shares and benefit from growth and investment. \u00a0In theory, it sounded appealing. \u00a0In practice, however, things unfolded rather differently. \u00a0Over time, many ordinary shareholders sold their stakes \u2014 perhaps, metaphorically, their own \u201cfamily silver\u201d \u2014 while large institutions steadily bought them up. \u00a0Ever since, many of those services have seemed increasingly fragile.<\/p>\n

And please don\u2019t get me started on the disastrous privatisation of the Probation Service, pushed through by Chris Grayling <\/span><\/span>and supported by our former MP Andrew Selous<\/span><\/span>. \u00a0Countless people \u2014 myself included \u2014 warned it was a mistake, but the plans went ahead regardless. Predictably, it failed to deliver on its promises and badly damaged what had once been a decent, if underfunded, public service. \u00a0Perhaps the one saving grace was that the government eventually brought it back under public control a few years later.<\/p>\n

So there we are: a story about decluttering, unexpectedly raising some money, and drifting into a rant about privatisation.<\/p>\n

Then again, you never quite know where these blog posts are going to end up, do you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are selling the family silver. \u00a0Yes, really \u2014 it\u2019s gone. \u00a0And, as is often the case in our lives, there\u2019s a slightly quirky story behind it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[18,12,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-decluttering","category-family-life","category-personal-finance"],"yoast_head":"\nSelling the family silver - 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