Keeping a diary

Mae West once said “Keep a diary and a diary will keep you”. I am always interested in why people keep a diary. In the case of politicians diaries tend to be self serving and remunerative. Barrack Obama is reportedly getting a record advance for his. The best written political diary in recent years was Alan Clark’s and my personal favourite in terms of writing elegance the three volumes of Harold Nicolson. But why do lesser known laboriously record their lives, thoughts and experiences in a diary or journal?

These used to be private but we now live in a world of blogging.

I know of one person who kept a diary in many volumes, never re-read them but deposited these in a bank vault which was the subject of a flood destroying all of them. He was asked to put a value on them which he could not do.

For this writer diary writing was a form of liberation: it was his one opportunity to do what he liked or rather write what he liked. Of course any diarist takes a huge risk of discovery. Nowadays the temptation must be to put a diary on a computer but the older diarist uses longhand. I know of one who writes in a deliberate scrawl to deter anyone from comprehension – including him!

Alice Mansfield has written recently of the difficulties critics and visitors face in attending a Eric Gill exhibition given the perverted nature of his life.

Yet how do we know he was a pervert? The allegations arose from his private diary which became the subject of a biography after his death. Yet supposing he made it up, you can hardly ask his dog to confirm the bestiality allegations.

Rather like Emily Dickenson, the shy poetess whose fame and critical acclaim came only after death are we going to discover post life diaries of critical and worth or those that shed light on the author? And the times.

Probably the best example of this is Anne Frank’s.

I do hope locked away in someone’s drawer lies a volume casting light on the troubling but fascinating times in which we live which posterity can enjoy.