Throwing out is the hardest thing...

I'm a bit of a hoarder. I used to have a house with a chapel of its very own and I managed to fill the lot with stuff. Then I moved to another house with five stables, and filled all of them, too. Finally, on my last move, my removal man took me to one side and said: "Mrs Diamond, you're paying me to move from house to house hundreds of boxes of stuff, most of which you've never unpacked. This is madness!" And then he went on to tell me that I wasn't unique - in fact there are millions of us hoarders who're too scared to throw anything away.

But it is so hard, for instance, chucking out the children's things. I know I have an attic crammed full of soft toys from my boys' nursery days - huge hairy dogs, big black and white pandas, hundreds of assorted beanie babies, teletubbies, Care Bears and enough Action Men to sink the flotilla of Lego Pirate Ships and wooden Noah's Arks that are boxed with loving care awaiting my... er... grandchildren?

It's a story echoed everywhere. On the phone-in today, I spoke to a professional house clearer who says that he often cannot get inside the front door of some client's houses. Often, they have to take the door off its hinges, and on one spectacular occasion, the rubbish was so dense and heavy, it had fallen through the floorboards!

Of course, throwing toys away when they've been outgrown - well, that's the plot of Toy Story 3.

Andy (the boy who owns all the toys) has grown up, and is going off to college. He has to sort his room, and decide what toys (like Buzz Lightyear, here, and Woody the cowboy doll, who haven't been played with for years) should be saved and stored in the attic and which ones should be donated to the local children's day centre.

His mum is not a hoarder. She's even going to give Andy's room to little sister. No sentimentality there. She's going round with bin bags. It's all very upsetting for a hoarder like me. Sniff. Made me think of my wonderful toy koala, Kwolla, who was my childhood friend for many, many years. Eventually I left home and my Mum couldn't bear to get rid of him - so she put him in a box in the attic. Sadly, the attic became infested with mice or rats and Kwolla got eaten. Sniff. It's all too upsetting. If you're going to hoard, do it with big plastic boxes. That's what I'm doing. We don't call our attic an attic. It's called Legoland.