Hand writing history: 200 years of personal diaries | King’s College
I saw this heartbreaking exhibition in the last weekend of its six-month run. I went on a recommendation from someone who’s taste I trust. I hadn’t known it was on, or that King’s College’s Maughan Library even existed, let alone contained a medieval chapel. But there were whole lives and eras contained in this row of vitrines, inside this 800 year old room.
The display was put together by the British-born, US-based artist Dylan Jonas Stone, who has built up a collection of private diaries over the years, which he’s exhibited from time to time. First shown as 100 Years of Personal Pocket Diaries in New York in 2012, the show has since gained an extra century, and went on display in Orkney in 2017 and Norfolk last year. In its latest iteration, diaries from Jones’ collection are mixed in with contextual documents from the college’s own archives.
Inside these unassuming glass boxes are thrillingly unmediated voices from the past. Diaries are personal by their very nature, and these diary notes - some copperplate, some barely legible - were never meant for me to see. Their immediacy was almost shocking at times.
Ken’s birthday 15 years, writes one schoolboy, in January 1942. I had a first prize at Sunday school. A few days before: My uncle Joe Harrison has been called up he is in this R.A.S.C. Japanese troops are advancing in Malaya. The world war, its perils and uncertainties, can only have happened alongside humdrum day-to-day life.
Sometimes of course, for any diarist world events seem to fall away, and our own personal lives fill our minds. It was these entries where lack of mediation between thought and page became almost unbearable for me. The clear glass revealing simple joy and pain. In 1925, a boisterous Girl Guide brags about another ripping time at school. But then: I did not go to guides because it was raining & I had a cold. Betty’s father died.
I said “heartbreaking” up top. In earlier times, death seemed all around; it’s around us still. I’m thinking about a small diary in the very first of the vitrines, which are arranged chronologically. In 1899, a woman who lived in the north of Scotland wrote, in a neat hand, about her mother’s death. She wrote in early October, just the same time of year that I was living in when I read it, just 125 years ago.
October 10th: I heard of dear mother’s death this morn.
October 11th: Miss Morrison… called. A later addition to this entry in a different pen: Mrs Lorimer brought flowers.
October 12th: The funeral took place. Aunt Mary was there. 2 coaches followed.
October 13th: I went to Elgin to buy mourning [clothes]. There was snow on the mountains.
October 14th: Miss Dawson(?) called. afternoon. Dear Theo came home even., after staying a night in Glasgow.
October 15th: A beautiful day, so sunny. Ice on the water. Later, in a different pen: Mrs Machin died.
Such spare poetry in these terse observations, as this brave woman reflects on the seasons changing, among other inevitabilities. I’ll never forget it.
Hand writing history: 200 years of personal diaries is at King’s College (London). 17 April - 13 October 2024