Keeping a Journal

With storm Eowyn, the first of 2025, raging outside and a Met Office warning to stay indoors, I have decided to keep warm and make use of my computer while we still have power.  Since the beginning of the new year, I have been thinking about diaries (or journals as they are often called).

One definition of a journal is – a daily record of news and events of a personal nature; a diary, e.g. “while abroad he had kept a journal”.  I have a confession – I have never kept a diary.  I have, however, written down my thoughts in a notebook from time to time.  It has been for me a way of expressing my innermost feelings and has helped me through difficult times.  After Tom died, I “talked” to him by writing down what was happening as if I was writing a letter to him.  I didn’t keep it up, but it did help me to get my thoughts in order. 

Recently I found a little notebook containing some brief jottings on sermons as well as a desperate prayer for help written two months after my mother died in 1999. I also drew a little sketch of all the burdens I was carrying.  Reading those thoughts again after all these years has helped me to acknowledge the stress that I was under and to forgive myself for not helping my children to process their grief better.  Son was particularly badly affected by his grandmother’s death.

I may not be good at keeping a diary, but I do enjoy dipping into the diaries of people in the past.  They can show us a fascinating glimpse not only into someone’s life, but also into the times that they lived.  One of the most famous diarists of the past is Samuel Pepys (1633-1702).  Although I do have two volumes of his diary, I confess that I have only skimmed through it. His entries vary from the mundane:

10th At the office, doing business all the morning. Home and to bed, to-morrow being washing day.

to a lengthy two-page description of his end of year celebrations as well as some gossip about the King.

I’m sure that everyone has read (or at least heard of) Anne Frank’s diary.  However, a lesser-known diary written about forty years earlier is that of Iris Vaughan.  Iris started writing as a young girl during the time of the Anglo-Boer War, in what is today the Eastern Cape. Because she was very outspoken and often embarrassed her magistrate father, he gave her a diary so that she could write her thoughts down instead of speaking them. This South African classic is the delightful, true diary of a young girl between the ages of about eight and twelve years. It is unintentionally hilarious and retains all the spelling errors of the original. Iris’s father was a magistrate stationed in various small towns in the Eastern Cape, and the diary gives the reader an enchanting view of small-town life in the Cape Colony through the eyes of a perceptive young girl who tells the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God, in a way that often lands her in trubbel. The context of this diry, diery, diray book is particular, but its innocence, humour and child-centred truth is universal.

While researching my family history, I was thrilled to discover that both my great-grandfather and my great-great-grandfather kept diaries.  The former told of his exploits during the Anglo-Boer war and his time as an intern in Portugal.  The latter wrote an account of his family’s sea voyage from Holland to South Africa and their early days in Graaff Reinet.  Reading their accounts has made them become real people to me rather than distant names.  I feel as if I have got to know them.

There are real benefits to keeping a diary.  I have found that writing down my thoughts has helped me in the following ways:

• It relieves stress when I acknowledge my emotions
• It clarifies my thoughts and helps me to see a way forward
• My “to do” lists help to remind me of projects that could easily be shelved
• I feel a sense of accomplishment when I look back and see what I have achieved
• It helps me to remember what struck me most from a reading, sermon or performance

Donna Ashworth, who has acquired a huge following the recent years, has launched an interactive journal to encourage positive thinking and mindfulness.  It is not really “my thing”, but some people may find it useful to be guided through the process of writing down their thoughts and emotions throughout the year.  This year, I have started an A4 diary which keeps my “to do” lists all in one place as well as a positive thought about the day and a brief record of the weather.  It doesn’t matter how you do it, but I would encourage you to try it if you haven’t already done so.

We all face storms in life and we all have to find ways of coping so that we are not too damaged by them. I find that writing about them is one of my ways.