What a huge subject to cover in just one evening! Lots of books, and diaries for us to browse such as The Dairy Diary, The Daily Telegraph Crossword Diary 1995, Readers Digest Year of Gardening, a very well-used Readers Digest Cookery Year, (a copy of which was given to me as a wedding present in 1973) and Michael Palin’s diaries.
We heard about the conditions in which Anne Frank wrote her famous diary.
A few entries from three members’ personal diaries were shared – one being 60+ years old. (I wonder if the writer kept her New Year’s Resolution “not to hit Colin’)!
One member brought along a diary published by her sister-in-law.
We watched a video of an interview of mother and son who collaborated to write the harrowing memoir of Alina Peretti’s life including her time in Auschwitz.
Alina’s secret story of Auschwitz
We admired the beautiful watercolour paintings and read the entry for 13 March 1906 in The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, written exactly 120 years previous to the day of our meeting.
Some years ago members of the group visited The Keep, Brighton, to view the Mass Observation archives. The instigators of the archive gathered hundreds of diaries and asked people to write down their opinions and feelings on a wide variety of topics and in doing so, documented ordinary life in Britain. Nella Last was one of those contributors and her diaries have been published as Nella’s Last War as well as being made into a TV series.
https://massobs.org.uk/the-archive-collections/
Anne read Jeffrey Archer’s diary entry written on his first day of a four year prison sentence for perjury and perverting the course of justice.
We looked at a memoir by the elderly aunt of one of our members full of funny, detailed memories of her younger life. A wonderful heirloom!
We also looked at a copy of Dork Diaries, a 15 book series written for 9-12 year olds. The style is similar to the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, and both series are written by American authors. Call me old fashioned but personally I would prefer the Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13.75!
Lastly, we were shown the very special little book that one of our members made for her grand daughter upon leaving home to go to university. It is full of wise words about kindness, being brave, doing one’s best, having confidence to try new things and many more gentle words of advice as well as family photos.