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My daughter is nearly 12. This month she graduated to secondary school and resolved to put childish things behind her. To that end, she lined up her entire menagerie of soft toys on the sofa, five deep, to make a considered, contemplative decision about which of them was going to get the chop.

There were bears, geese, rabbits, dogs, hedgehogs, pigs, elephants, a penguin, two tigers and a single doll, a scraggy female item named, for some reason, Bob. Many of these were hand-me-downs from the extended family; a few were her own from the off. The toys had all featured in her life at one time or another. Large ones, small ones. Sucked ones, chewed ones. Loved ones, unloved ones. Nameless ones.

When Nick Coleman’s daughter decided to get rid of her cuddly toys, he was outraged – how could she?

Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian