Thirty-eight years of life in diary pages
Thirty-eight years of life in diary pages
I was interested to read Mrs Hewitts letter regarding writing a regular diary.
A school friend gave me a five-year diary for my 15th birthday, and challenged me to keep it up for a year on a daily basis.
Thirty-eight years later, my diary has become part of my daily routine. Unlike our illustrious predecessor, Samuel Pepys the majority of entries are anything but epic.
One entry records my first meeting with my husband of 33 years – how quaint can you get by present day standards. Soon after marrying we spent three years on a bush farm in Western Australia – the diary has many interesting and unusual entries for that adventure.
Entries cover work, houses, friends, life, death, our children of 28 and 25 with their many ups and downs, and now our two grandchildren, prices of items bought and sold, wage increases, various house developments, gardens and farm year notes. Records of illnesses are a great help especially on those forms that enquire which year/month/day/hour you or the children were ill with various ailments. It is all there in the volumes.
I have been researching my family history, and the diaries will be a very interesting addition to future generations understanding of our time – at least I hope they will.
Jacky Haigh
Newdegate House,
Howlett End, Wimbish, Saffron Walden, Essex.