Colm O'Regan: The famous Capital Exercise book with its cartoons of people playing sport is another great snapshot of a different time

My papers will be available to the State on my death. That’s all my news.

It was an unexpected treasure-trove. Eleven of my copybooks from Dripsey National School. A tantalisingly fragmented archive.

They were in one of my father’s ‘outside presses’. We grew up in a farmhouse that wasn’t exactly the IKEA when it came to innovative storage solutions. There were no slidey, hissy, clickey little shelves on wheels. Stuff was in the bottom of wardrobes, under the television table, behind something.