Personal diaries

I'm going to start doing that Brown. When I was in an unhappy marriage many years ago I used to type weekly letters to a friend and really did find that writing everything down helped me. I'm sure it didn't help her, she was probably quite depressed after reading them actually. My husband now (second husband) has advanced Alzheimer's and has been in a home for 8 years and I make notes on bits of paper about him then lose them so it's a great idea. My family won't know either. There always seems to be some sort problem with my son and dil or my granddaughter, my stepdaughter is expecting twins and I'm going with her to the scans etc so I think it's a really good idea. Better buy a very thick notebook! :-)

Ive got what i call my memory reminders,when my husband passed away i was depressed and i read somewhere it helps to write your thoughts and feelings down so i started with my childhood and so for the past 6 years ive wrote important events with my children and grandchildren ive wrote 3 exercise books so far. My family dont no and i dont no if i want to keep them to myself .

I still have my Mums diaries. She was born in 1929 and wrote one every day from the early 1940's until 1952 when I was born. Obviously too busy then :-)

I kept mine for about 10 years but threw them out as they were filled things about my very unhappy marriage to my first husband. I hadn't thought about starting again but this thread has made me think, shall I? I have two grown up sons and two stepdaughters and grandchildren all of who tell me all their troubles so although they would need to be private, I may start doing them again.

That's good grannybuy -bet you've got longer than 170 months though. Now, you people who want to but can't get started - just get on with it! When I was doing my thesis I had to keep a 'reflective' diary re my research. No choice. I found that once I started it was fine. A good way to summarise that days work and what I thought about it. Also, we had a vg thesis writing coach who dinned it into us 'if you've not got anything written down what have you got? Nothing!' That certainly energised me. I know its not the same as a personal diary but it really made me get on with it. You have nothing to fear from the blank page in front of you -start writing on it today! Sermon over !

I started my ' 170 month blog ' last year when I read that my likely remaining years ( 14 ) translated into 170 months! This sounded much worse ( less ) than 14 years and it made me think how short a time! Obviously, I realise it could be shorter, who knows. I decided to set some goals, and keep a journal. Don't manage it every day, but I'm keeping at it.

I'm almost exactly the same, Ginny. Apart from wanting to keep a diary of present events, I thought I could write down one memory from the past each day, too. It's getting started that is holding me up!

Also I want to get into the habit of writing obvious stuff down. My mother is getting a bit forgetful and she really could help herself a lot by writing more things down. Desptie this, she manages brilliantly - never misses a hairdresser's appointment, for example, and manages to catch the bus into town when she needs to. But sometimes it would help if she wrote things down. Not only herself, but other people, too. I phone her every night and we have the same conversation each time!

Oh, that's a shame mrsmopp.

Thanks for your replies.

I have a good few years worth of diaries but they only have appointments and basic ' what am I doing today' information.

I am now 61 had for some reason I feel I would like to write a proper diary , putting in thoughts and feelings as well as trivia and every day observations. Part of my problem in doing this is that although I have all the words in my head I can't seem to put it down on paper in the way I want. Not sure if you know what I mean.

I suppose I am also a little reticent because maybe I would write some things that I wouldn't want others to read at some point in the future when I am not around.

Will think about it for a bit longer.

Oooh mrsmopp !

I started a diary when I first started work in Liverpool and left home at the same time. It was early 60's so I wrote about my work, my boyfriends, about seeing the Beatles and other great bands at the Cavern. Then when we married, my DH thought he had the right to read them all and I didn't want him to know about my boyfriends. So he went out one evening and I sat in front of the fire, tearing up my diaries and burning them.
I would give anything now to have them back.....

yes I do -It serves for me as a type of life story. I think we all have a responsibility to record our history including our thoughts and feelings. Every life is interesting no matter how you've lived it. I hope my grandchildren's grandchildren will find it interesting one day and beyond. My problem is that it is beginning to resemble War and Peace and that might put them off. Whatever it get's it off my chest and I may enjoy it in later years.

I've kept a diary on and off since I was about 13. Like Indinana some of mine were written in shorthand. I recently destroyed the diaries that covered my "living in London in the 60's" years as I really didn't want my DC to find out how fickle I had been
I now use an online diary, not sure what I shall do with it in the future

One person's humdrum is a vital and lively insight into how things really were.

I kept a diary from age 13 (teenage angst) to 24 (married).
At age 50 I started again and write every night. It's useful to check things but I rarely look back over the piles of blue notebooks.
I don't write anything very intimate and wouldn't much care if anyone read them but they'd soon give up, my life is pretty humdrum.
My mother burnt her many years of diaries, along with her wartime letters from my father but left a couple which I read long after her death. There are fascinating details of her nurse training, her meeting and falling in love with my father, her time in a sanatorium with TB, the start of WW2 , her marriage, life in wartime. Her diaries end during her first pregnancy with twins.
It was funny to see that my mother marked the start of each period with a X, just as I did 25 years later.

I still have (not sure where though) a diary we had to keep in the 5th form, we filled it in every morning along with drawings during registration. That is good to read, I recorded Churchills death, not sure what year that was.

Kept one in around 1959, ran out of juice for it by March, threw it away!

Never ever kept a diary.

I did throughout my teenage years, and still have them in the loft. But not since I married.

No, and I often wish I had. I used to write diaries in my childhood but they weren't exactly riveting (went to school, did arithmatic and compesition; went to foot clinic for varooca; didn't go to school, had tummy ache; marjorie broke my skipping rope).
In my later teens I used to keep a diary now and again, and wrote lots of stuff in shorthand so my mum and sister wouldn't be able to read it. The annoying thing is I can't read it now .

Try nearly five years ago now

Resolved on my 60th birthday ( neatly give years ago now) to keep a daily diary I record everything except appointments etc I find it very therapeutic and interesting to look back on if only to remind myself that what I was worried over then was perhaps a bit of a fuss over nothing.

Me too Charleygirl and SlowGinny! Mum sussed out my 'MIBM' code for Mum in Bad Mood! She was an alcoholic, so it appeared almost daily!

I kept a diary - well hidden - when I was going through a very bad patch with my DH. It served as a vent for my feelings, but when, after a couple of years, I realised that I was still unhappy and upset by the same things and that nothing had changed in our relationship, it was one of the things that prompted me to call it a day on the marriage.

Same here Charleygirl!

Thanks Jane! I might give them a call and enquire.

I think whitewave is right. Did Sussex not take over the Mass Observation Unit's archives? I loved the books they produced. What maybe seemed dull to the writer at the time was absolutely fascinating to me. See if Sussex would be interested in your diaries. Who knows they could have a keen PhD student who would love to collate them gagagran? Please give them a go!