Do I really want to read someone else's diary?
Historical research that might be too personal
This week I finally started reading the David Kynaston book my dad gave me towards the end of 2023, Austerity Britain 1945-51. Bearing in mind that the 1945-51 Labour government was my favourite bit of GCSE history1 and I love a thick doorstopper of a history book, I’m amazed it took me this long. I am enjoying it, but Kynaston draws heavily on Mass Observation documents and private diaries — invaluable, but sometimes a bit too personal.
My dad’s uncle kept a diary from some time in the 1920s until the late 1990s, possibly slightly beyond. I remember when I was an adolescent he mentioned in passing that the boxes of diaries in his loft would be mine one day (he had no children), though he had no idea what use I would have for them. For reasons that need not concern us here, the diaries inadvertently ended up with my aunt when my great-uncle died 23 years ago so I never had to decide how I felt about reading them.
A couple of weeks ago my aunt offered my recently-widowed dad the boxes of diaries as a project to occupy his newly-empty days. He wasn’t keen, but I initially was. In the intervening years I’ve spent a lot of time delving into both family history and local history, and since clearly my great-uncle was related to a subset of everyone I’m related to, and he grew up in the village I’m from, these diaries ought to be valuable on both counts. And that’s before we get to his take on historical events, and the interesting life he had as a surveyor for the Ordnance Survey, mainly in the Scottish highlands.
Having read a lot of excerpts from diaries in Austerity Britain where the diarist comes across as petty, mean, unobservant, disappointingly uninterested in Great Events, or up to no good, I’m wavering a little. I was very fond of my great-uncle and although I didn’t know him well, and only for the last 20 or so years of his life, I have an image of him that I wouldn’t want tarnishing too much. Now I come to think of it I’m not sure what his politics were — what if he confided to his diary his disappointment in 1945 that Churchill didn’t get back in? What if he was rude about a Christmas present we got him? What if, lurking among the innocent-looking hardback books, there are details of a sordid affair2?
My dad pointed out that I don’t have room in my flat for all of my own stuff, let alone boxes and boxes of someone else’s. He’s right, and I may lean on that as an excuse. I really would like to know what’s in those diaries, but the trouble is I don’t think I want to know all of it.
More than 30 years ago. Ouch.
Unlikely, and I’d like to apologise to the memory of my great-uncle for even suggesting it. But the point is you never actually know.
70 years worth of diaries! Extraordinary. My guess is that if he explicitly left them for you to read, then they are interesting, probably more than just accounts of day to day life or outpourings of unhappinesses. If it were me, I'd be tempted to read paragraphs here and there from random volumes, to begin with, just to get a sense of his writing style, as a way to ease into thinking how much I wanted to read of the whole. What a fascinating thing.
Someone has written a book recently on her aunt's diaries that I haven't read, but I did read an essay in which she wrote about the project. I think it was in The Paris Review; I'll see if I come up with a link.