When throwing away old bank statements have you ever wondered if someone with a criminal mind might find them and use them for untoward activities?
My sister did, giving me a handful once in a while to shred in our domestic-size electric shredder.
This machine would accept three sheets at a time to produce a fluffy mix of finely shredded paper that we would share to add to our respective compost bins.
Not long after I married Margreet, who was working for a foreign embassy, she asked if I would like to shred some secret and confidential documents for, I think, a small remuneration. This I did willingly.
I was an ideal person to do the job of shredding secret government missives as I was quite ignorant of the language in which they were written.
I was able to feed their shredder with more documents at a time than the smaller one at home. Even then it was a slow, painstaking and dull job.
As I progressed, I suddenly saw a document in English.
I am afraid that curiosity overtook my natural inclinations of confidentiality and probity to take a quick glance at its contents,
Surprisingly, the date on this secret document was somewhere in the 1930s.
My quick and surreptitious look might, I thought, reveal information on which the fate of nations had depended.
Its headline was “The Price of Irish Potatoes”.
