h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've been doing some clearing out and sorting through drawers and old boxes of junk that I've managed to accumulate over the years, and amongst this lot I've discovered a total of 14 house keys. It's a mixture of Yales, Chubbs and Unions, that sort of stuff.

Now I have two locks on my front door (plus one on the back door, but that is always unlocked) so only have a need for two keys. What are all the others for?

So I decided to sit myself down and try to work out what they all unlocked.

One key I think is for the front door of my Grandmother's house. It looks aged and has been rubbed with a pencil lead to keep the lock mechanism smooth, which is just the sort of thing that my Grandparents used to do. Only thing is, she no longer lives in the house. She sold it and moved out to a care home about 6 years ago when her eyesight became too bad for her to care for herself at home.

Another key I know is for my old house in Sheffield. I recognise it because I got a job lot of keys cut after I had to change the locks after kicking out a very odd tenant. The keys were Yales and a funny brass colour - dead cheap really, a bit like me.

I've also got the keys to my old flat in Brighton, well the common front door key at least. I hung onto a copy so that I could go in and check if any mail had been delivered after I'd moved out. I doubt it works anymore as the landlord was pretty hot on changing the locks after troublesome tenants left - not that I was troublesome you understand, but some others definitely were. I think he changed the front door lock twice in the 18 months that I lived there.

Two other keys I believe belong to ex-girlfriends of mine. One fits the lock of a lass's flat in Huddersfield. Well it would do if she still lived there, she moved twice in the time I was going out with her. And moved a dozen or so times in the years since. Last I heard she was living somewhere in Derbyshire with her two kids.

The second girlfriend key belongs to a fine woman who lived in London. Leytonstone to be precise. The trouble was I started going out with her the same day that my father died, some 3½ years ago now. In my mind she was always somehow mixed up in the terrible events of that day, and the general emotional mess that that left. The relationship fell apart after a couple of months, it was all my fault and I still feel bad about it in many ways after all this time.

Well that's five keys sorted out. As for the other nine, I've no idea at the moment. I'll hang on to them all for the time being to see if I can work out their history and what, if anything, they mean to me now.

I have one key which I definitely kept as a souvenir (and because I'd had to pay for it). I don't expect the locks it used to operate to be around any more but then again...

I have keys for suitcases and bike locks which I don't use even though the locks *are* still around. Most old keys for things I no longer own have either been passed to the new owner or I've handed them in to locksmiths to be recut or disposed of safely as they see fit.

How odd. I too have just spent the day cleaning and rearranging my flat (is this apparent coincidence the result of a particularly cold and wet weekend?) and I too have turned up half a dozen keys. Unfortunately, in my case I can't identify a single one.

I just did the same thing last week!

I was reluctant to throw them out, because I know that my parents gave me keys to their current house. Since I'm not sure where they are, I should really just bring the whole bunch of them to their place the next time I visit. I'm sure they'd get a big kick out of me trying all my keys in their locks!

It is impossible to just throw them away though isn't it? I moved recently and unearthed a load of keys, I chucked out those that I dfinitely recognised (not too many of them) but have just put the rest in a box somewhere 'just in case'.

You know, when people want to use the listening stations at the store, we ask them for either their driving licence or their keys as collateral - they can take up to five CDs at a time, which equates to as much as $50 worth of product.

Hypothetically, anyone who has a bunch of old keys which are of no use could easily use them to steal five CDs from us on several occasions

*rushes to Austin*

I say GD, you haven't got the key to my Chastity Belt there have you? It's really starting to chafe now.... Be a sport.... PLEEEEEASE



Bassman

No Bassman I can't help you there at all



But in the meantime I have worked out the origins of three more of the keys...

Two of them unlock doors in and around the Sheffield University Student's Union. The Film Unit and Nightline offices to be precise.

The third is the backdoor key for the house I lived in in Stevenage some 18 years ago now.

Does keeping old keys allow you to unlock the memories?


I have loads of keys that I am not sure what they open and am sure some of them must be for doors I never use in the cottage and outhouses!

Yes, I'm sure there is a strong element of that. Now I just wish I could remember what the remaining keys unlocked, so I could have the memories of whatever it was I was supposed to be remembering

Were there that many doors in your property for you to have keys that you can't remember what they did? And have you *ever* opened that door to your garage?

Yes there were a lot of keys that came with the cottage that I have never found what they did!

The garage door is open - I think you mena the outhouse - and no I have not got in there yet! Who knows what I will find when I do - I think there is a broken key in the lock

No I did actually mean the garage. I was talking about the door at the front which the car goes through, rather than the door at the back. I've been through that back door to collect garden furniture, and weren't the spider collective upset at the intrusion

The other garage door does not need a key - its been shut with a piece of wood screwed in at either end since the doors dont meet properly in the middle so are not that secure with or without a lock. The other challange there would be if you were to try and put a car in it (other that is than all the stuff that is in the way!) is that the garage is on an angle to the drive and unless you could drive up the horizontal bank you couold not get the angle to get the car in!

So in other words it is shed with a very large door at the far end

Well it would be except the door is fixed shut - so is it a shed with a wall which can be removed?

Actually I think it should all be removed on the grounds that it is very ugly!

I agree and would get it done apart from the fact it has asbestos in the construction and is therefore very very expensive to do!

Ah! That is a problem then. I guess you'ld be talking a couple of grand for demolition and disposal. And what's more it's not even as if you can burn it down to get rid of it

Exactly!

One day when I am rich and can afford to re develop totally I would like to remove it and put a large studio in there - big windows on the non road side - fantastic light, wonderful views over the fields at the back and the most amazing sun sets

Still in the mean time it would just be nice to get the basics done and the place really sorted out!