About Diary Archive

TLDR; 2015: I inherited my granny’s diaries. Her name is Annie Smith. The diaries span her teenagehood - her 70s. I’m transcribing them for a future piece of work. Though she wrote novels and wanted to be a published writer, imo Annie’s best writing was in her diaries. It’s unselfconscious, evocative, honest, smart, funny and unpretentious. You don’t need to have known her to find them interesting or moving. They’re universally human.

When my granny died in 2015, I inherited her diaries. There are a lot of them, I’m not sure exactly how many. (I know, I should know.) Perhaps 30? Most of them span from 1995, after my grandpa died, until a couple of months before her death. Hardcover black Ryman notebooks (ruled) with postcards or magazine clippings she cello-taped to the covers. She numbered them with small colourful stickers. There are a few anomalies outside of this time period, including a leather bound Five Year Diary she kept when she was a teenager (in the late 1950s) and a few from 1980s summer holidays when my mum and my aunt were teenagers. My granny was an English teacher and these six-week spells seemed a rich time for her return to diary writing.

My granny was called Annie Smith. She was born Allison, but changed her name in her midlife. She was a writer; she had some poems published in a small poetry anthology of women writers in Bristol in the 1990s. She wrote three manuscripts on her white and blueberry-coloured iMac computer – one was about the magical powers of water. In the late 2000s she wrote a blog from the perspective of an alterego. She told me I was to have her diaries, though incredibly we never spoke about what she wanted me to do with them. There were no rules attached. As she prepared to die, I noticed her becoming less attached to stuff and that seemed to extend to her diaries, though she kept them neatly ordered on her bedroom shelves. I got the impression she wanted me to do something with them, that I might find them useful, but like I say, the diaries were another thing for her to let go of. I prevaricated for years, looking after the diaries with great care though I didn’t do anything with them. They came to France in a cardboard box on the backseat of our car and I mostly ignored them. I felt guilty about them. Finally, in 2020 I began transcribing them.

One of my great fears is that my house will catch fire or a detrimental leak will appear in the roof, damaging the diaries before I can glean and record their contents. But aside from that anxiety, reading them has given me a lot of pleasure (even if her handwriting can be a nightmare). I feel like I’ve been granted an incredible way to communicate with her and at times even to find advice and wise counsel from her, even though she’s dead. I love laughing at the funny or gossipy bits, and I like it when she writes about how much she fancies Daniel Craig or Richard Burton. I’ve been quietly writing my own responses to what I’ve found in a long, sprawling Google Doc. The irony is that Annie’s best writing was in her diaries (though I’m starting to wonder if this is rather common). This is where her writing is unselfconscious and evocative, honest, smart, funny and unpretentious. As a fellow life-long diary writer I’m always amazed at how clean and clear-headed her observations were in the moment of pushing ink across the page. About her self and her flaws, and about the thrumming of daily life and social dynamics around her. She should have had a column in the local newspaper. Now, three years later I do have a better idea of what I’d like to do with the diaries, though I know it’s going to take me bloody years to get there. So for now, here are some breadcrumbs.

I am going to have to start on my work. I had better identify it.

In the greenhouse last night listening to the tomatoes instead of nerves clashing I realised that they do have a life. There were all sounds of positive rustlings and gurglings and sucklings after the watering – some made by the beetle swimming for its life in the submerged flower pot that seems to help the thirst problem of the greenhouse tomato – but also I swear the whisper of life.

I thought of Findhorn where they have to apologise aloud to cabbage plants thinned out as they hit the compost heap and talk the remainder into enormous proportions in a very unpromising pocket of the Scottish Highlands.

However much I bemourn the hard work and conflicting needs of motherhood, she is right, I would never ever give it up. I see flashes of that special relationship I’ve never had with anyone else – a totalness in the relationships that has in a way been forced on me but which I now have learned to accept.

I got up around 9.30 having finished ‘Voyage in the Dark’ by Jean Rhys. (all you men are bastards I said to Dick having read the last paragraph)

St Mary’s Hall was already full when I arrived. I knew it was a good jumble because the first person I laid eyes on was the dealer who sold me the scarab, rooting about under the table in a box of ‘junk’. The place was solid with people and the tables piled high with colour + chaos. The secret is to get close and with one hand ‘turn over’ the stuff until the feel and sight of something grabs you. I like hearing the conversation at this time ‘I’m only looking for dusters’ is an old favourite as a smart lady in crimpelene and set hair elbows you out of the way. But the truth is that the people in the room are all there because they value a bargain higher than personal comfort and the realisation that the room is a mine of bargains there for the digging raised the adrenaline to a high that you can feel palpitating all around. Toes are trodden and plastic bags exchange hands and clothes are avalanched in the efforts to dig deep – but surprisingly the spirits are high – as if everyone here knows that it should be fun.

Two hours later in the garden breakfasting under my primary coloured umbrella ~ toast and Herefordshire honey and silence. Everyone else still in bed.

Yesterday fell apart about 1:00 o’clock when the girls seemed to invade my territory – the sofa in my room and spread scrums and rivalry and music around the place. They also crumbled my quilt and pulled my blind down. Am I getting obsessional I wonder. I fled to bed with Adrian Mole who I think is a real rounded human being I hope my girls end up with blokes like him. I finished the book at 10pm, having been interrupted by my mother. “I hope you’re glad to see me” paving her way with fivers and M&S biscuits.

Daniel Craig physically robust with gentle nature.

Armani Silk lipstick. No 13 £19. Pillar box red.

This morning I bought my radio. It is as near my old red velour trimmed transistor as I could get. It was double the price I intended to pay but I felt instinctively that it was the better buy. I’ve had a most pleasant day listening to it. Back to adolescence. My radio. I shall protect it within my life.

Read a book by Dirk Bogarte. Read Tender is the Night. Potted a variety of plants. Cleaned and tidied the pantry, sorted the open shelves in the kitchen. Moved my sitting room around and back again because it didn’t work.

Seen Richard III. Watched ‘Coming Home’ with Jane Fonda + Jon Voight. Spent 3 mornings in the library. Been to see aunty Mary twice. Read a terrible biography on F Scott Fitzgerald. Taken the girls shopping for uniform. 

It’s going to be difficult to manage food until Friday payday. There is very little money. I don’t think we have ever been so poor…. or ever had so much…….