In January 2000, as part of a series of BBC Radio 4 programmes called "Talking Through Their Hats", I gave a broadcast in which I noted the irony of being an historian who knew little about her own background. I described the effect of finding my father's suit 25 years after his death, and discovering my certainty that I came 'from a long line of people with touch as acute as the hearing of someone with perfect pitch.' This postcard paper picks up that theme, considering the issues of cultural memory and, more particularly, my own awareness of how haptic sensibilities interact with the choices I make as a writer and curator.