When we were looking after our people I had a huge day by day desk diary on the hall table along with the 'phone and answering machine and the visitors book...
The diary was essential...without it I'd have been lost...there were appointments with social workers and psychologists and teachers from the local Special school...dentists and hearing tests and MRI scans...birthdays and shopping trips and who had a relative visiting on Sunday afternoon...that diary contained our day to day life...
When I was a teenager someone gave me a five year diary...the sort you could lock with a tiny key to keep your secrets safe from prying eyes...the entries read, Maths test today...Ruth had her hair cut...Mrs Smith is a meanie...hardly riveting stuff, but I knew or suspected that Mother would have had ways and means of opening the little lock to go snooping, so I never dared write about the lad who lived on the farm at the crossroads who I liked from afar...he was far too old at eighteen to take any notice of my fourteen year old self anyway.
Keeping the diary going was a struggle...I'd write something puerile every day for a week and then leave page after page empty for the next six...in the end I think I lost interest altogether.
We kept personal diaries during the last year of school...it was a time of changes in the world...the English teacher wanted us to reflect upon those changes and to write our personal thoughts about them...it was an excellent exercise...certainly it was something I enjoyed and by then the teacher no longer criticised my idiosyncratic way of writing so I felt I could write freely for the first time...
It wasn't until Mum died and I went back to her home to meet with the solicitor etc and I was going through the drawers of a chest on the first landing that I found a Common-Place Book. It'd belonged to Mum's great-grandmother who'd lived in the early 1800's. A thick book, with the pages much stained, it had a collection of recipes for boiled puddings...her own recipe, or, as they were called then a 'receipt' for a cough mixture...a daily update on the weather...the day the pet Tortoise came out of hibernation...she'd noted she'd spent an afternoon mending bed sheets and seeing the first Crocuses in the flower beds...she paid the window cleaner sixpence for 'cleaning all the windows front and back' but had to give him a bucket of hot water to do so. One of the maids had asked for the coming Sunday off to go and visit her mother...Gt Granny made a note here to have a pound cake ready for Sally, the maid, to take with her as a gift...the receipt for the cake was in the book.
Because of time restraints I could only stay a couple of days that visit...when I returned several weeks later much of Mum's small treasures and a few of the bigger...had quite disappeared...including the Common- Place book.
This year I bought a hard backed A4 book...the sort that students use...and began my own Common-Place book...the day the Swallows returned...the first time of leaving the doors wide open after the winter...a pattern for crocheted flowers...just the minutiae of everyday lives. I decorate some of the pages with stuff I've found on the internet...old seed packets and funny or thoughtful sayings...
It's of no interest to anyone but myself I suppose...but I enjoy turning over a new page and writing out a favourite poem or noting there was a sharp frost overnight...if I had a diary as such, it'd be full of Doctors appointments and the next visit to the Consultant...better by far to keep a Common-Place Book.
How sad that the book had disappeared. Those are the things which can't possibly be replicated - I remember something similar happening when my husband's grandfather died, such a shame when this happens. I've written a Journal for many years now - It will be quite a revelation to whoever reads it when I pop my clogs !! 😉
Jan xx
in reply to
Can just picture your family gathered around trying to read over someones shoulder as your Journal is opened up!
My daughter gave a lovely writing book, now I know what to put in it, thank you for the idea Vashti. I have three books which record every visit to my allotment with photos and planting plans, but they will be of no use to anyone else, but a common place book would be more interesting.
I have an old handwritten recipe book from my husbands family written in the 19th century.
I like the picture at the top of your post too. Thanks
What an idiot that English teacher must have been to not recognise the talent you so obviously have Vashti. Luckily for us on here that we all get the benefit of your wonderful writings. XX
Terrible about the diary going missing.So much to look back on.My mum was the same lol A school friend lent me Forever Amber when I was young and in those days it was considered very raunchy but it was not.But it kept dissapearing from where I hid it and one day I caught her reading it I did not laugh then but a few years later mum and I were talking and she admited it was not raunchy but a fantastic story,I have read that book so many times now.But I hate it when the vultures desend.It can break up familys. mags xx
Hi coughleigh, I had forgotten all about reading Forever Amber when I was a teenager......I used to read Peyton Place which I found hidden behind the bookcase when my parents were out and put it back before they came home. I also remember the fuss about Lady Chatterlys Lover
When you think what is being read now and what is said and done on the tv.We were very innocent really.I must admit I was a Forever Amber girl.I read pp and lady c lover but i think because I was born and lived in London FA made me so awareof the history of the area I lived in.We walked to Buckingham palace and lots of times I got the boat at the Thames steps and went down the river to Hampton Court.Then walking the opposite way I went to Whiechapel scene of Jack the ripper.Also just a walk over Waterloo Bridge and into the West End.That is how my love of history started.We were rascals hiding our books from our mums lol.My mum had eyes in the back of her head mags x
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I did not laugh then but a few years later mum and I were talking and she admited it was not raunchy but a fantastic story,I have read that book so many times now.But I hate it when the vultures desend.It can break up familys. mags xx
