Musing

These last few weeks have been busy, some routine events such as volunteering at Local Studies, Pilates class, half term meant no art class or singing for Ian, we went to a talk about diary collection held by the Bishopsgate Institute and sadly, yet another funeral.

The local resident who died was one typical of suburbia, born before the war, bombed out, an evacuee, Boy Scout, devoted husband, one for whom friendship and family were important, worshipper at  chapel, an engineer who repaired his children’s toys and family belongings, supporter of the local football team, a father who chauffeured, supported the children’s  activities and interests - altogether a good bloke, eventually lost to dementia. How many thousands like him grew up in the post war years in those semi-detached 1930s homes with a culture of duty, church, discipline to become stalwarts in  business, civil service or military whilst accepting how things were. Although of an earlier generation my father’s family had and have still in some this idea of duty to others.

Last Thursday we heard a most interesting talk by archivists from the Bishopsgate Institute about their collection of diaries, not just those of the famous, great and good, but of as they said those diaries of the great unwashed, the common man whose observations about national and international happenings were as interesting as the personal details of their own lives and thoughts.

Taken from the speaker’s PhD, the description of why people keep a diary, what kind of person and the recording nature of diarists did resonate with me. Unfortunately I haven’t kept all the diaries, my oldest is a  Boots scribbling diary of 1962, much considered with food, weather, school life, times of getting up and going to bed, then later ones cover late 60s when I was at college until 1979 when I met Ian.  It is a sad fact that years when life was exciting and busy I was less likely to record events. If I donated my diaries to Bishopsgate there may be some judicious use of Snopake, it was comforting to hear that one can put an embargo on the diaries. I will tell my children of my wishes, as the diaries predate them there should be no problem, Daughter and I have had a laugh already about my entries in 1962.

Blogs weren’t considered as diary entries, not sure if they would be accepted if printed out, has made me wonder whether I should return to pen and ink again, no one else would see it and send me emails  that resulted us leaving a ‘family’ with which I had been involved since my early teens. For the past 40 years a pocket diary has sufficed, each is full of details of appointments, contact details, I still use a Filofax, it is heavy and too big for a handbag laden down with knitting and crochet.