Nangle Natters: Where there’s a will…

I’ve been thinking about my will lately. I hasten to add that as far as I’m aware by body’s doing perfectly alright with no fatal breakdowns forseen in the near future. It’s just that I’m being prompted by other people (namely my mother) not to just leave a mess if I get hit by a bus. Apart from what’s on the bus. You know what I mean.

My vague impression from half-heard conversations and family grumblings is that it’s best to leave everything to one person that you trust with a letter of intention – or maybe it was a letter of instruction – it’s a correspondence of some kind, outlining the details of how you want your estate to be divvied up. It’s to do with death duties, so maybe it’ll put me on a par with Gary Barlow in terms of tax avoidance (not actual funds – I’m not rich or anything, just for karma which, considering what will have just happened to me, I might want to keep in the ‘pro’ column).

My idea is to get a will written now that won’t ever have to be updated. Which puts a fair bit of pressure on the longevity of all those mentioned in it. I was thinking of leaving my worldly goods to my brother – he’s a clever sod with a wonderful moral compass and a wife who works with international human rights. If I can’t trust them I may as well pick up sticks and go and live in a hut on an allotment with my ‘precious’ buried underneath the smoke stack. Which I don’t want to do.

Maybe it’ll put me on a par with Gary Barlow in terms of tax avoidance

I’d like to make sure certain family photos and bits’n’pieces stayed with my siblings, that savings went towards neicephews that needed it for uni and the like, and that my friends could come round and take a book they liked to remember me by. I am aware that obviously there would be lots of caterwauling and wailing, blackout curtains as wardrobe for half of Brighton, and pains in the hearts of all the people that left their love for me unspoken. If this is my own passing I’m imagining, I may as well go all out.

And I would like to leave money to charities – particularly local charities. I want the Sussex Beacon to still be going strong and to be an example to the rest of the country as to how to look after people with dignity and tenderness. For Amaze to be a template for organisations across the country as to how to support families of children and young people with SEN and disabilities with innovative ideas and a reassuring ear.

So… no pressure there you guys. You need to hang around. Because once I’ve written this will-thing I’m not going to be able to get around to updating it, meaning you’re going to have to stick around.