I remember clear as day writing my first published piece for a national newspaper. It was about my love for Swingball. It must have been there for 10 years on the small lawn at my grandparents' house in Scotland before rust and grown-up cousins finally killed it off. I foresaw its death, I wrote, when I heard it had endured one particularly harsh winter without being consigned to the shed, while the pole was used to replace a broken washing line.

I didn’t see a Swingball set again until a few years later, when I bought one and gave it to my girlfriend's parents, who naturally wondered why - and who this was going out with their daughter. The reasons I gave for buying it were to do with having only a small garden space available and wanting to keep fit, but in reality it was down to my youthful tendencies.

I had forgotten what a good game Swingball is. I remember those long and hard rallies (there is only one in a game) of my childhood, the inevitable defeats handed out by opponents much older than me and the cacophonous laughter during and after a ridiculously long exchange of shots. The proximity of the opponent increased the excitement, but what we hadn't accounted for was the blisters from the black plastic rackets afterwards.

In August 2021, I returned to my grandparents’ house for the first time after several years. Deep in the Highlands and nestled next to a rushing waterfall, the house burned down in a tragic fire but has now been rebuilt and modernised.

Yet family memories remain firmly intact; the piece of lawn is still there, so too the racquet sound and laughter of yore.

Both my grandparents may now have passed, yet plentiful anecdotes and stories stay etched and vivid - of their time in Asia, World War II, hours spent fishing, family in-jokes - and all passed on to friends who stay. There is still the tight connection and familiarity with the past despite the house’s new chapter. Those, I hope, will be passed down.