If Only I Hadn't Thrown Away My Afghan Coat

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TYPICAL. HAVING given precious cupboard space for years to a rail full of old clothes which I kept telling myself might come in handy one day, I finally shoved the lot into a bin bag and took it to the charity shop.

Included in this motley was the elaborately embroidered sheepskin coat bought years ago from a market in Mashad in northern Iran. Back in the Seventies every self-respecting flower-powered hippy had an Afghan coat acquired somewhere along the road to Kathmandu. I was no exception.

It was only when I got it home six months later that I realised my mistake. "There's an awful smell in the hall," my mother said. "Almost as if something has died and gone …