I’m not a natural lender. I’m a reasonably soft touch when it comes to money, but regarding the important things in life – books, music, pens – I loan with a gently thrumming underscore of anxiety. While I’ve weaned myself off my mother’s habit of writing her name in every book she buys, I still tend to keep an internal inventory of where each one has gone, and when I’d like it back. Add in the fact that I’ve never possessed the zealot’s desire to convert others to my enthusiasms, and I’m forced to concede that I make a poor practitioner of the art of lending. Leonard Cohen was the same, apparently. As he confessed in ‘The Land of Plenty’: ‘Don’t really have the temperament to lend…’ In his case, it was a helping hand. In mine, it is mainly records.

When it comes to music, the etiquette used to be fairly simple. In pre-internet days, you would lend someone a record long enough for them to get a taste for it. If they liked the album, they might buy it themselves or tape a copy. (Remember the ‘Home Taping Is Killing Music’ campaign? It wasn’t, funnily enough; it was doing the opposite.) Investigations completed, within a matter of days you could expect your album to be returned. The arrangement was reciprocal and left everybody satisfied.

The code these days is more fluid. I’ve reached the stage in life where my children are borrowing significant chunks of my record collection. I love that my kids love music, and that we share some tastes while disagreeing wildly on others. Swapping playlists, going to gigs together, rooting around stores and record fairs are activities I treasure. They have grown up with an appreciation of music as a solid, physical presence – but have I taught them too well?

Their borrowings raise the awkward question of when, and how, and even if, you get the damn things back. Most of my David Bowie albums are currently stacked in a shared student flat in Glasgow. I’m 50 miles away from them in Edinburgh, which is considerably less proximate than I consider optimum. There have been moments in the past few years when I’d quite like to have given Station to Station, Low and Scary Monsters a spin for old time’s sake. Each time, the moment passes unrequited. I console myself with the thought that they – alongside cherished LPs by Tim Buckley, James Brown and Curtis Mayfield – have found new love elsewhere.

Each time I visit the flat, I glance at these old friends covetously, but can’t bring myself to reclaim them. I’d like to give them a quick health check, but that seems churlish – and hypocritical. The truth is, I’ve looked after my own records much less carefully than my children have. I’ve never bought albums with their monetary potential in mind. Inevitably, however, some have accrued value. Vinyl hit a low ebb during the period when I was a student, in the first half of the 1990s, and some of the records I bought then – usually the day my grant cheque cleared – are now worth three figure sums. At least, they are when they’re in pristine condition, which most of mine are not.

The few that do hold some cash value only exacerbate my lender’s anxiety. One of my offspring – currently downstairs, soon to be in St Andrews – has borrowed my original copies of the first two Blue Nile albums, A Walk Across the Rooftops and Hats. I’m pleased that they’re discovering these records, which are among the finest ever made. They’re also worth a few bob. I value the music far more than the price tag, so there’s no question of denying access; the point of records is to play them, after all. Still, I find myself at times hovering pathetically outside the door of the bedroom, like an expectant father in a hospital corridor in the bad old days, praying that they’re going to be OK in there.

The traffic now flows both ways. I’ve recently borrowed records by Young Fathers, Lana Del Rey, Hamish Hawk, Lorde and Taylor Swift from my kids. They lend them happily and never ask for them back. I tell myself I should learn from their laidback example, particularly as more of my collection will soon be relocating to student accommodation. What to do? I’m not going to place my records under house arrest. I have considered buying replacement copies, but can’t quite justify it. I can, of course, listen to almost all of these albums digitally at the swipe of an index finger, but it’s not really the same. I’m learning to let go of my children as they spread their wings. Why can’t I let go of my records?