LOVING the story this week from Shelter Scotland, which reveals the outrageous things people hand in to its charity shops all over Scotland.

Some are completely bizarre – who on earth would donate a box of loose teeth (with the roots still attached, eugh), for example; or a bag of dirty underwear?

The 40 plastic pigeons are hilarious, and the bag of severed dolls’ heads with all of the eyelids glued shut or painted black is thrillingly sinister.

Others hint at hugely interesting back stories – the pair of Samurai swords, for example, handed to staff in Paisley (who promptly delivered them to the police station); the full dominatrix set ‘with only one previous owner’, donated in Glasgow and the parcel containing one woman’s engagement ring, wedding band and divorce certificate discovered in a parcel by surprised staff.

I’d love to know the tales behind those....

My mum tells the story of going to stay with her older sister in London when she was a concierge for an upmarket block of apartments.

One of the residents was a doctor, highly intelligent and immaculately dressed, but also overworked and extremely stressed most of the time.

One day, in a tired daze, she left out her entire collection of family silver – expensive cutlery, dishes and trinket boxes - to be sent to the local charity shop. It was only because my aunt noticed it wrapped up in newspaper that she was able to rescue it and return to its abashed owner.

I find charity shops, antique markets and the Barras weirdly fascinating - not because of the cut-price furniture or bargain buy socks I might be able to find there.

Instead, I like rooting about in the boxes of old postcards or tattered photo albums which have somehow found their way there.

Just like messages in a bottle, washed up years later on distant shores, or time capsules unearthed on building sites, or those lovely stories about letters delivered decades after they were posted, they are fascinating fragments of previous lives, connecting present with past, bringing other people’s stories to life.

Some stories, of course – like whatever was going on in the life of the person who handed in a mummified cat to a Shelter Scotland shop this year – are probably best left untold….