For years and years, back in the day, when Lucozade bottles were wrapped in orange plastic, entertainment was skipping or playing Stuck-in-the-Mud in the street and telephones were attached to hallway walls by curly wires - I kept a diary.
Like all kids that grew up in the 1970s and 80s, we didn’t have access to social media, mobile phones or the internet so for me, scribbling a few lines each night into my Five-Year Diary was the highlight of my day. Entries are hilarious. De-coding the tiny, untidy childish scrawl, I seem to have spent most of my days in the garden bossing my two younger siblings into playing schools or jumping over obstacles playing horses. That, or we acted out scenes from Bugsy Malone with our friends, arguing over who would play Tallulah or Blousey Brown, with my poor old brother – although being the only boy, never got to play Bugsy or Dandy Dan as we thought he was far too young so was often relegated to a character he really did not want to be. My favourite was when my best friend and I would act out some of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, particularly the scene where Paul Newman and Robert Redford jump off the cliff into the water below to escape their pursuers. I am not sure why this particularly features in my diary so much, or how on earth we re-enacted the jump - but I am sure it was because Butch and Sundance shouted ‘shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittttttt’ at the top of their voices as they plummeted, and it just felt ever-so-naughty to swear at the top of our voices in the name of art. (I also took great delight in singing ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’ by the Beatles for the same reason - it sounded so much like ‘bloody’ it was just too good to ignore). Most days my entries ended with ‘and then I went to bed’. Interestingly, school doesn’t make an appearance at all. ABBA featured heavily and I am sure I was in love with Agnetha. Her and Paul Newman. Naïve and simple – these memories I am sure would have stayed firmly stuck in the late 1970s if it wasn’t for that little diary.
As I got a little bit older, and my Five-Year diary was full; I started using a proper notebook. The Teenage Years. Not quite Adrian Mole aged 13 ¾ but pretty cringeworthy reading. At one stage I really loved Adam Ant. Hearts pierced with arrows were carefully coloured in the margins. Lots of annotated AA initials scrolled down the page, the tendrils looping into yet more hearts. Little pictures of Adam were snipped out of magazines and stuck into my diary, so I could gaze at my Dandy Highwayman just before sleep and dream of him scooping me up and carrying me away with him... * Sigh * … School, friends, picking spots and watching Dallas dominated the early teen entries. Boys, parties, Dr Martens and Indie music the latter. All a glimpse into a time of my life I can barely now remember but I have my diaries to look back on. And as much as I inwardly wince as I read some of the shoe gazing, angst ridden twaddle I spouted – I’m glad there is something of my teenage dreams captured on paper.
The daily diary writing tailed off when I went off to University – more so once I met my future husband and even more after I had children. I was too busy wiping bottoms. Too busy juggling life. Too busy to notice my time was zooming onwards and years had lapsed since I last commented on the state of my hair or my favourite pop music. There have been moments where I have dipped in – sometimes just summing up a year in a sentence - and one moment of madness about 5 years ago I did keep a ‘365 Days’ record – making sure each evening for a year I wrote something we did that day as a family. A bit like my Five-Year diary entries but without the ‘and then we went to bed’.
I love the fact I can send an email to someone and get an almost instant response. I love the fact I can upload an image or a thought to a social media page and get a reaction. I love the fact I can message a group on WhatsApp or send a personal text to a friend. Indeed, we are communicating more with each other than we ever did in the past. And as this has become so normal and second nature to us, most of us have stopped our letter writing and pouring our hearts out into diaries, preferring instead to post our thoughts and fears on our chosen public platforms. But who is recording this for prosperity? Where is the future me going to go when she wants to find out what made her tick when she was 40? Or 50? I suppose I can always re-read The Diary of Tilly Fairfax aged 52 ¼ …
What I loved about re-visiting my 8 and indeed 18 years old self, was the honesty and the innocence. The diary I kept was for me and me only. Perhaps my mum sneaked a peek, who knows, but I didn’t think anyone would read it. The mundane facts and the banal waffle such as what I had for dinner and lists of my best friends at school; is a snapshot of the real me, warts and all. A picture of what was actually going on in my head at that time rather than what I thought other people wanted to read.
Will my sons have an honest record of how they felt themselves at 8 or as a teen? They are captured digitally for sure - photos are a great aide memoire - yet will they be able to remember their favourite flavour of ice-cream or the music they have plugged into their earholes as the image was taken? And (more important for character building this one) will they ever have to cringe inwardly when they find scribbled swirly heart shaped tendrils and kisses dotted around the name of their particular crush of the time?
Only time will tell.
© The Real Tilly Fairfax
