Caring for family heirlooms and keepsakes

Why a little care goes a long way

Most family treasures are not lost in a single dramatic accident. They fade, warp, crack and corrode quietly, over decades, in a loft or a cupboard nobody opens. A christening gown left folded in a damp box, a bundle of wartime letters held together with a perished elastic band, a silver mug polished every year until the engraving softens and the hallmarks blur. That kind of damage is cumulative, and it is usually impossible to undo.

The encouraging news is that the most valuable things you can do cost almost nothing. You are not trying to restore anything. You are acting as a custodian: keeping conditions steady, handling things gently, and resisting the urge to interfere. Preservation is mostly about doing less, more carefully.

Getting the conditions right

Aim for stable rather than perfect. Two or three degrees of sway and a modest level of humidity do far less harm than wild swings. As a rough target, most household objects are happy at around 18-20C and 45-55 per cent relative humidity, with no direct sunlight at all.

• Move heirlooms out of lofts, cellars, garages, conservatories and sheds. These spaces cycle through extremes of heat, cold and damp all year.
• Choose an interior cupboard or the back of a wardrobe, away from radiators, pipes, chimneys and external walls.
• Block daylight. Ultraviolet light fades textiles, watercolours, photographs and furniture veneers, and it does so invisibly until the damage is obvious.
• Hang pictures on internal walls, away from lamps and sunny windows. If a watercolour or a silk sampler has already faded, at least stop it getting worse.
• Buy a simple hygrometer and check it through the winter. Persistent readings above 65 per cent mean you have a damp problem worth solving before you store anything precious nearby.

Storing different materials

Different materials want slightly different things, but a few principles apply across the board. Use acid-free boxes, acid-free tissue and unbleached cotton or calico bags. Avoid ordinary plastic bags, cling film and vacuum storage, which trap moisture and can release harmful fumes. Never use self-adhesive tape, rubber bands, pins or staples, however tidy they look.

• Textiles: wash and dry your hands first. Pad folds with crumpled acid-free tissue so creases do not become split lines, and roll larger pieces around a tube rather than folding them. Never dry-clean an antique garment; the solvents and pressing can do real harm.
• Paper and photographs: store flat in acid-free folders, or upright and supported so nothing slumps. Keep photographs out of magnetic and self-adhesive albums, where the adhesive eventually migrates into the image. Polyester sleeves are a safe home for prints you want to handle.
• Metals: silver, brass and pewter tarnish faster in humid air. Cotton gloves matter here, because the salts in your fingertips etch metal over time. Store silver in tarnish-resistant cloth or acid-free tissue, and keep pieces separate so they do not scratch each other.
• Ceramics, glass and jewellery: avoid crowding, and keep broken pieces together in a labelled bag if something shatters. Resist gluing it back together yourself.

Cleaning: what to avoid

Almost every well-meant cleaning product in a kitchen cupboard is unsuitable for an heirloom. Bleach, vinegar, lemon juice, bicarbonate of soda and abrasive creams can all strip finishes, etch surfaces or leave residues that attract moisture.

• Do not use silver dip on anything with a patina, enamel, inlay or a porous surface. Regular abrasive polishing removes a thin layer of metal each time, so polish only when tarnish actually obscures the object.
• Do not wash textiles, or spot-clean them with detergent. Water can shrink, bleed dyes and leave tidemarks.
• Do not attempt to flatten rolled documents, iron creased fabric or remove foxing from prints at home.
• Dust gently with a soft, dry brush. If an item is mouldy, flaking, wet or actively crumbling, stop and speak to a conservator rather than experimenting.

Handling and display

Most accidental damage happens in the moment someone picks something up. Work on a clear, padded table, never over a hard floor. Support the whole object with both hands, not a handle, a rim or a single corner. Photograph an item before you move it, so you have a record of how it looked and where any weakness lay.

For display, rotate. A sampler or a silk scarf can spend a season on the wall and then rest in the dark for a year or two. This spreads the exposure and gives the fibres a break. If you frame anything, ask for archival mounting and UV-filtering glazing, and keep the original frame and any backing board that carries an inscription.

Recording the stories

Objects outlast memories, but only if someone writes the memories down. The provenance of a piece is often more precious than the piece itself, and it is the part most easily lost.

• Label in pencil, never ink. A soft pencil on the back of a photograph, along the margin, or on the sleeve or box, is safe and can be removed later.
• Note who owned the item, where they lived, roughly when it was made or acquired, and why it mattered to them.
• Record the small human details: the ring worn through the war, the recipe book with a gravy stain on page forty, the clock that never kept time.
• Talk to your oldest relatives while you can, and record the conversation rather than relying on notes. Voices carry things that transcriptions do not.
• Photograph every heirloom, including the back and any makers' marks, and keep copies in more than one place.
• Pass the record on. A labelled box will mean something to your grandchildren; an unlabelled one usually becomes a car boot sale.

Do these few things and you have done the most important work there is: keeping the object safe and keeping its story alive for whoever inherits it next.