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| Diary of a woman ahead of her time | Diary of a woman ahead of her time |
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| After my grandmother died last year I did not inherit any money. I received two (originally three) battered tea cups and a herd of small lead animals, the smallest, a sausage dog, no bigger than my pinkie nail, and a bread bin. My brother took home a silver inkwell fashioned from a repurposed horse's hoof, and my cousin walked away with the wash basket that had sat on the landing since the dawn of time. | After my grandmother died last year I did not inherit any money. I received two (originally three) battered tea cups and a herd of small lead animals, the smallest, a sausage dog, no bigger than my pinkie nail, and a bread bin. My brother took home a silver inkwell fashioned from a repurposed horse's hoof, and my cousin walked away with the wash basket that had sat on the landing since the dawn of time. |
| Nana was six months shy of her 100th birthday when her life stilled and although she had not found time to specify who was to get the Chinese plates covered in tits (not the bird variety) or the first edition Peter Rabbit books that she'd doodled in as a child, what she left me is ultimately more valuable: the handwritten chronicle of her – entirely defiant – life. | Nana was six months shy of her 100th birthday when her life stilled and although she had not found time to specify who was to get the Chinese plates covered in tits (not the bird variety) or the first edition Peter Rabbit books that she'd doodled in as a child, what she left me is ultimately more valuable: the handwritten chronicle of her – entirely defiant – life. |
| I was lucky enough to grow up next door. Our house had been the stable house to the large country house she'd got as part of her scandalous 1940s divorce. Nicknamed Dry Rot Grange, one half was inhabited by her son, my uncle, and the other half her daughter, my aunt. She, the family's keystone, had a room filled with exotic knick-knacks in my uncle's half. Dad was fortunate enough to have a few feet of distance between the cottage and the big house but that did not stop her wafting through all three front doors borrowing milk or, frequently, enjoying three full Christmas dinners. | I was lucky enough to grow up next door. Our house had been the stable house to the large country house she'd got as part of her scandalous 1940s divorce. Nicknamed Dry Rot Grange, one half was inhabited by her son, my uncle, and the other half her daughter, my aunt. She, the family's keystone, had a room filled with exotic knick-knacks in my uncle's half. Dad was fortunate enough to have a few feet of distance between the cottage and the big house but that did not stop her wafting through all three front doors borrowing milk or, frequently, enjoying three full Christmas dinners. |
| She was incredibly charming. Born in 1914, the eldest, spirited daughter of an eccentric Edinburgh MP, Nana, whose name was Mary Jameson, did as she pleased all her life. She also heartily documented it. Her diaries begin at the age of seven with her cousins in Ayrshire. Although they contain little more than an illustrated list of what they ate – mostly sweets – and details of where they trekked on their ponies that day, it was the start of something. She was hooked. | She was incredibly charming. Born in 1914, the eldest, spirited daughter of an eccentric Edinburgh MP, Nana, whose name was Mary Jameson, did as she pleased all her life. She also heartily documented it. Her diaries begin at the age of seven with her cousins in Ayrshire. Although they contain little more than an illustrated list of what they ate – mostly sweets – and details of where they trekked on their ponies that day, it was the start of something. She was hooked. |
| The best diarists are the great storytellers, and she was no different, bringing in a cast of friends and family that ranged from Palestinian refugees to the Mitford sisters. As a little girl, she would plonk me on the metal child's seat on the back of her ancient bicycle and, with nothing to hold on to other than her fibrous jumpers, I would listen to her stories; travels to China, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Cuba. The seat would be folded down until the arrival of the next grandchild and when I was old enough to understand, I would realise that, despite being born into a class she called "shabby genteel", she had joined the Communist party. Her diaries were a thing of lore. Huge tomes that looked like the Magna Carta, filled with pages of inky writings. Days equated to pages and pages, who had done what and why, and what someone else had said in a postcard from the edge of the world. But not every detail was captured. I once sneaked a look at the day I was born; it was non existent, the previous entry was dated six months before that and the next entry was a month after. Clearly, it was a fallow time for news. | |
| No one she met came away from the experience without a story to tell: there was the time someone bumped into her in Heathrow airport with 19 plastic bags of luggage tied to her body, or when she brought an entire set of dining chairs back from Moscow, delivered to her by consular car. The time she bought a house just off Cheyne Walk in Chelsea, during the war and entertained Quentin Crisp, who used to sing songs about fairies to her toddler son. The time she baby-sat my sister and me, and when my parents came home they found the front door wide open, the blaring TV had a rug thrown over it, my sister and me in bed with our fringes trimmed at unfortunate angles. | No one she met came away from the experience without a story to tell: there was the time someone bumped into her in Heathrow airport with 19 plastic bags of luggage tied to her body, or when she brought an entire set of dining chairs back from Moscow, delivered to her by consular car. The time she bought a house just off Cheyne Walk in Chelsea, during the war and entertained Quentin Crisp, who used to sing songs about fairies to her toddler son. The time she baby-sat my sister and me, and when my parents came home they found the front door wide open, the blaring TV had a rug thrown over it, my sister and me in bed with our fringes trimmed at unfortunate angles. |
| This is obviously nothing – a life condensed into 1,000 words. When I grow old, what stories will I tell my grandchildren? Will they find the one about how I met my girlfriend as amusing as the one about how Nana met my grandfather? (She was 30 and at a party at a posh house. She saw this man coming up the stairs. "I saw these blue eyes and knew the next place we would be was the bedroom." He was 60, a visiting French artist.) | This is obviously nothing – a life condensed into 1,000 words. When I grow old, what stories will I tell my grandchildren? Will they find the one about how I met my girlfriend as amusing as the one about how Nana met my grandfather? (She was 30 and at a party at a posh house. She saw this man coming up the stairs. "I saw these blue eyes and knew the next place we would be was the bedroom." He was 60, a visiting French artist.) |
| Even though half the point of keeping a diary is for it to be read by a third party, I'll confess, I've never read anything other than snippets. But I feel like I'm gearing up for it. She was writing her diary for an audience she was creating – her family. But knowing that they are there makes me think of how my life events will be transcribed for the next generation. As my email inbox? 30,000 and growing tweets? | Even though half the point of keeping a diary is for it to be read by a third party, I'll confess, I've never read anything other than snippets. But I feel like I'm gearing up for it. She was writing her diary for an audience she was creating – her family. But knowing that they are there makes me think of how my life events will be transcribed for the next generation. As my email inbox? 30,000 and growing tweets? |
| I've never been able to keep a diary. As I child I felt too self conscious to write anything, as an adult I suffer from the age-old excuse of no time; too busy trying to fit in some experiences to remember, but sometimes a day can't be captured in 140 characters, or be done justice through the eyes of an Instagram filter. | I've never been able to keep a diary. As I child I felt too self conscious to write anything, as an adult I suffer from the age-old excuse of no time; too busy trying to fit in some experiences to remember, but sometimes a day can't be captured in 140 characters, or be done justice through the eyes of an Instagram filter. |
| I think of Nana and all the things she was, and did, all the seas she peed in, and the pink dusky sunsets she watched without the temptation of trying to capture it on her phone, and I feel so lucky to have had someone whose live-and-be-damned, do-what-you-want, eat-your-porridge-with-cream-and-wash-it-down-with-a-croissant attitude could rub off on me. She was vivacious, bra-less and defiant to the end. Every moment had to be filled – boredom was never an option. Even in her last few days, as the long winter skies filled with grey, she grew weary of impending nothingness, shouting to my aunt, "I'm dying, why is it taking so fucking long?" | I think of Nana and all the things she was, and did, all the seas she peed in, and the pink dusky sunsets she watched without the temptation of trying to capture it on her phone, and I feel so lucky to have had someone whose live-and-be-damned, do-what-you-want, eat-your-porridge-with-cream-and-wash-it-down-with-a-croissant attitude could rub off on me. She was vivacious, bra-less and defiant to the end. Every moment had to be filled – boredom was never an option. Even in her last few days, as the long winter skies filled with grey, she grew weary of impending nothingness, shouting to my aunt, "I'm dying, why is it taking so fucking long?" |
| Even her funeral, the final chapter at the end of her story, was a story. The village was shut, the castle flag at half mast and the church was packed for her send off. Wheeling her coffin out of the church towards her grave, the sky turned black over the sea. The undertaker held down the vicar's flapping cape. The bell tolled 99 times. An ice storm blew from nowhere, my cousins and I, who were pallbearers, made it to the grave side and nearly fell in, our smart shoes sliding on the mud as we lowered her in. The rest of the congregation were stuck in a traffic jam behind one of her elderly cousins who had been blown out of his wheelchair. She would have relished the story, adding in ever more details on each retelling, how the toggles on her wicker coffin nearly blowed open in the storm, how her cousin sang very loudly and incredibly out of tune during the service, how the dog peed on her sofa while we were in the pub for her wake. | Even her funeral, the final chapter at the end of her story, was a story. The village was shut, the castle flag at half mast and the church was packed for her send off. Wheeling her coffin out of the church towards her grave, the sky turned black over the sea. The undertaker held down the vicar's flapping cape. The bell tolled 99 times. An ice storm blew from nowhere, my cousins and I, who were pallbearers, made it to the grave side and nearly fell in, our smart shoes sliding on the mud as we lowered her in. The rest of the congregation were stuck in a traffic jam behind one of her elderly cousins who had been blown out of his wheelchair. She would have relished the story, adding in ever more details on each retelling, how the toggles on her wicker coffin nearly blowed open in the storm, how her cousin sang very loudly and incredibly out of tune during the service, how the dog peed on her sofa while we were in the pub for her wake. |
| But the diaries … there was to be one last entry. Discovered on the morning of her funeral, her feathery handwriting on a little notepad. It was her payoff line – 100 years rolled into one sentence. Addressed to no one, it was an entry meant for us all. It read, "Just be happy. It's a wonderful habit." | But the diaries … there was to be one last entry. Discovered on the morning of her funeral, her feathery handwriting on a little notepad. It was her payoff line – 100 years rolled into one sentence. Addressed to no one, it was an entry meant for us all. It read, "Just be happy. It's a wonderful habit." |
| It would have been her 100th birthday in May. We celebrated appropriately. | It would have been her 100th birthday in May. We celebrated appropriately. |
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