For the next few weeks we will be exploring - diaries and their uses. People use their diaries for all kinds of reasons. Here are some common uses: A place to keep a dated record... Places to keep account – of lovers, as well as money… They are also known as a place to write down appointments, a place to store memories and as therapy or secular and silent confession or secrets… Some diarists use them as a creative outlet... Well-documented examples of writers using their diaries as writerly gymnasiums: include Somerset Maugham, Virginia Woolfe, and Katherine Mansfield or the [...]

Our spotlight romantic Mr ? writes of himself the following: Me. 5 [foot] 6 [inches] 11-12 stone Non-smoker Music lover Car [and] house owner Moderate drinker Retired Good health. Crosswords Reading Cinema Pub lunches Country walks Tactile Aromatherapy Solvent Keeping fit History Auburn/gray Bifocals Stocky Prefers casual wear Leather shoes.’  

Our romantic diarist looks for the following in a lady: NOTES 2002: Aquarius [and] Gemini [and] Libra VG. Aries – fair. Size 12 or 14 Non-smoker Car owner Retired or semi retired Wine love Intelligent House/flat owner Cinema goer Music lover 5 [feet] [to] 5 [feet] 5 [inches] tall Nice boobs Tactile

The GDP archive has stacks of diaries that deal with LOVE: we have multiple teenage girls listing the boys they: "‘Love’, ‘Hate’, ‘Passion’, ‘Friendship’, ‘Courtship’, ‘Flirtship’, ‘Marriage’" & retired chaps sowing their oats with ladies on the internet…. The diversity of these texts illustrates that: across ages, generations, gender, sexual preference, and cultural and geographical differences………. the ups -and -downs of LOVE/SEX etc are up –and -down. We have what Philosophers, Psychiatrists and Neuroscientists and Pseudo-scientists tell us about love, in diaries we have what we remember. The following is an extract from a diarist's entry on a second date [...]

Thank you for your pictures and comments on your New Year's, 2019 and keen diary-keeping impulses. This is a great picture from diarist K: his stash of diaries from the last decade or so in transit.  

  Diaries are expert at revealing the extraordinary and the everyday in individual lives.Diaries are an exploration of ‘self’ in the age of the ‘selfie’. Forms of diary have for millennia been a cornerstone of self-examination. Over 1,800 years ago, Marcus Aurelius was asking himself: Who am I? Am I good? Twenty-first century diarists ask themselves the same questions.The diaries of the ordinary (extraordinary) person/s offer an ‘alternative’ to the ‘received’ narrative. They are the BIG story as told by the ‘LITTLE’ people.No diary is the same but all illustrate the communal urgency to understand/ act/ and to some degree [...]

Diaries and diarists capture human experience. Diaries are concrete enquiry into the most abstract of questions: who am I? They stage important issues for the individual and society. They are a profoundly personal springboard into some of the 21st century’s most crucial questions, including how do we identify, understand, portray and share aspects of ourselves? Diaries are the ‘LITTLE’ people examining the BIG questions. Diaries are deeply democratic: anyone who can write, can diarise. Diaries are a vehicle to exploring subjects/ questions/ issues/ important historical moments across gender, age, time, and place.

  Who started a diary on the first of Jan? Do you fancy sending us your New Year's entry - your low down on the new year's countdown? We will publish it - with or without your name attached..... Please send your diary entry to [email protected]. If your entry is 'artistic' (see example) we can always publish pictures you might want to send.

For all those who might be having the odd 'chat' with relations over Christmas, keep the huff 'n' puff for the diaries...just like 'anonymous'..... 'Had a long conversation with my mother yesterday. Had quite lecture - Ma said I didn't do enough at home -the idea! She said I must get used to housework for when I marry, marry?' Anonymous, February 1923