TEXT 1

Extract from 'Grey is the Colour of Hope', a memoir written in 1988 by Russian writer and poet Irina Ratushinskaya.

The memoir covers Ratushinskaya's arrest, details of her time in a Russian 'strict regime' camp, and her release in 1986. She was arrested and imprisoned for writing what was considered to be 'anti-Soviet' poetry. In this edited extract, the camp officer, Podust, is checking the prisoners' possessions in 'the Zone'.

Striding into the Zone, Podust heads purposefully for Natasha's bed, turning it inside out to search for those wretched socks. She knows that Natasha is particularly sensitive to the cold, is running a constant temperature and therefore sleeps in woollen socks (our blankets being what you would call symbolic), which she keeps in her bed with her nightdress, separately from her other things. Storage space is at a premium anyway, because every small bedside locker must be shared by two prisoners. These lockers have two shelves and one drawer, and everything must be crammed into them – letters, tooth powder, clothes and the like. At first, there was one locker for every prisoner and the 'surplus' lockers were removed only a year later. Even so, it was a tight squeeze. Try to picture it for yourself, my readers: go through your cupboards and wardrobes and pick out what you would consider to be the barest essentials to serve you for the next seven years. Don't forget to include your maximum allowance of five books, letters, photographs of your nearest and dearest (whom you won't see for years to come), stamps, envelopes, those treacherous underclothes, a couple of towels…

Hold it! You're overdoing it a bit, aren't you? Forget about the address book – that will be confiscated during your very first search. Better just sit down and memorise the most important addresses. Put that toothpaste back, too, it's against regulations. You can take a box of tooth powder, though. And why are you packing those red socks? Do you want to find yourself on report for them, the way Lagle Parek, later to join us in the Small Zone, did in 1985, and forfeit a meeting with a relative? Better not risk it. You're taking a track suit? What on earth for? To do exercises? Well, of course, doing exercises is not forbidden by the regulations, but there is no time set aside for them, and it's better not to keep the track suit in your locker: it will be confiscated. Stow it away somewhere safe. Oh, and keep the amount of underwear down to a minimum: the regulations are that you wear one set, and have one change only. You could try secreting a few more things, but the chances are they will be found and confiscated.

Now take a look: see how much stuff you have gathered? Virtually impossible to pick it all up at once, isn't it? And now, try to fit it all into a locker with an actual storage space of thirty by thirty by seventy centimetres. It must be stowed tidily, too, so Podust will have no cause for complaint.

TEXT 2

Extract from 'Don't Dread Downsizing – A Smaller Home Makes You Feel Like Newlyweds!'This is an edited version of an article that appeared in 'Woman and Home' magazine and the 'Daily Mail' newspaper in January 2016. In the article, Libby Purves talks about moving into a smaller home with her husband.

LIBBY PURVES: Don't Dread Downsizing – A Smaller Home Makes You Feel Like Newlyweds!

We did it! We decluttered, emptied sheds, filled skips, overloaded local charity shops. We defied sentiment and moved on. We downsized! We admitted that we are, mainly, only two in the house. I contemplated the sprawling vagueness of my home in Dunwich, Suffolk; the way that long-beloved objects and furniture were hardly noticed any more. I saw our yards of dusty, random books (no one needs four copies of The Mayor of Casterbridge – how did that happen?).

I shuddered at neglected chests and hampers and deep, deep wardrobes full of random oddities. (No one needs three snorkel sets, either.) I admitted that there are limits to the number of stuffed babyhood toys it is sane to keep. Then there was the stuff inherited when my mother floated peacefully into eternity, leaving me with great drifts of her lifetime archives and possessions to sort out. As we hauled and sorted and stared in amazement at the junk we owned, the very bricks seemed to sigh with relief.

We left a huge basement library, dining room and mini-cinema, a big sitting room, three bedrooms plus a guest flat. We now have two small but shipshape bedrooms and a tiny downstairs room with a sofabed. I am incurably keen on having people to stay, so we've put a shepherd's hut in the garden for when the spare room and sofabed are full. To my husband's despair, I have also sneaked in one classy fold-up, a moderately upmarket camp-bed and one lethal World War I khaki canvas thing. Hospitality is my non-negotiable red line.

No two downsizings are the same, and ours was rural. But many of the lessons we learned apply to anyone. The first is about clutter. You can't cram a quart into a pint pot, as Granny used to say, so be realistic. Take a deep breath, get some plastic boxes and start half a year before the move. Categorise things as pure rubbish or charity-shop and jumble-sale.

Note which of your children, nephews, nieces or friends' offspring are setting up home, and ply them with your unwanted furniture, curtains, crockery and kitchen equipment. It's nice to think of it being used, and frankly, one rarely misses anything. A bonus is that as you reduce the volume, you rediscover long-forgotten treasures. In the new house are pictures, objects, photos and nice jugs we hadn't registered for years, because they were in the spare bedroom or a dark cupboard.

They spring back to life in their new setting.

Mementos of bygone family and friends spring back, too: not lost but revived and freshened in memory to smile from new mantelpieces. We have fewer walls to hang things on, so our huge collages of holidays or schooldays are out of their dusty frames and in a big, safe art folder.

Furniture? Face it, some of it just won't fit. It'll cramp your new rooms. Our enormous bed had to go, and the sofa the old dog used to like, and the stupidly big armchair and that interesting hall cupboard.

Books? We sold a third of them, but the very act of culling meant the rediscovery of treasures. There'll still be somewhere to bung what's left. Family archives, old letters, children's primary school drawings, treasured toys for potential or actual grandchildren. Most downsize homes have somewhere – a glory-hole for such things. And if not, there is always Big Yellow Storage. Expensive, yes, but it offers a year or two to convince yourself that some things really aren't worth hoarding. One is not a dung beetle, or a dead Egyptian Pharaoh.

A bit sad, you say? A bit Aunt-Agatha? Not at all. It's more like being newlyweds again: nesting in the tiny first flat with the wedding-presents. Honest.