Diaries

Some diaries are very famous, think of Pepys, Adrian Mole and Anne Frank. Well, mine has not yet arrived in the book shops!

Why do people keep a diary? Is it for themselves or for others to read? I started keeping one at about 9 years old, at primary school, and more or less constantly since them until I was about 20. I have still got most of them, in a box, under the bed.

The  entries in the early ones are very short, the weather, or a phrase such as ‘ the new library box arrived in school today’. But the one in March 1962 records that I failed to sit the 11+ exam due to the big snow, and Llangyndeyrn school was shut for weeks. You will be pleased to learn that I passed it some months later. I also write about having my first pair of spectacles, and of enjoyable holidays.

Diaries written in secondary school days are full of exams, of handsome boys, but also recording the number in the congregations on a Sunday in church. Sometimes there was a trip to town on a Saturday night, Youth Club on Fridays and some TV programmes such as The Forsyte Saga.

After going to University, there was a great change in the entries. Believe it or not, I wrote every night, even at 1 o’clock in the morning. Things were hotting up now, with lots of new experiences and friends. I hitchhiked from Aberystwyth back to Carmarthen for a weekend, which scares me now thinking of it, and caught a bus to Lampeter another time for my father’s induction in Cwmann and Pencarreg.

Then, I met the man who has been my husband for 53 years, and that was the end of my diary keeping.

So, what was my intention while writing a diary? Looking back now, I blush and ask myself ‘Who was this person?’ Was it a factual record, or an outpouring of emotion, or for others to read in the future?

A friend bought me an attractive diary last year , and I wrote in it every day, and again this year so far. Each day I record the weather, as did my mother in her dairy, but the rest is factual, and no, neither you nor anyone else can read my diaries!