The humble hanky has fallen out of fashion. I am, single-handedly, bringing it back

April 29, 2026 — 3:30pm

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.

When I was a boy, my mother stuck a note to the pin board in my room listing all the things I had to pack for school. I was like the gormless kid in the Larson cartoon: “First pants THEN your shoes”.

Now I’m all grown up, the checklist still exists, but only in my head: phone, headphones, laptop, keys. One item alone has carried over from the childhood list – handkerchief.

Every day, even now, my phone goes in one pocket, the hanky into the other. Without it, I feel undressed.

Some people insist that everyone is better off using tissues that can be disposed of, instead of a piece of fabric to transport our discharge around with us. When I was a child, my snot rags had busy lives.

I wasn’t, thank God, one of those kids with two green strings permanently linking nostrils and mouth. My phlegm was internal. Furled. Packed high in the sinuses and in need of regular expulsion to avoid choking.

My best efforts at clearing it out could be volcanic – a housemate once quizzed me, genuinely concerned that some........

© Brisbane Times