23rd February, 1633

Yesterday I was distracted by a lost phone and completely missed Samuel Pepys' birthday.  His family came from Cambridgeshire, but he was born in Salisbury Court, just beside St. Bride's.  Known as the printers' church, and where Wynkyn de Worde is buried, the church Pepys knew from childhood was burnt down in the Great Fire of 1666, and the famous church we see today, with its wedding cake spire, was built by Wren in 1672. (see www.stbrides.com)

St Bride's Church, Fleet Street, London

© photo Nick Weall

Although Pepys could be pompous, promiscuous, selfish and pleasure-loving,  he was also brave, far-sighted, enquiring and extremely hard-working.  Many of his birthdays were ordinary working days, ("up early and to the office,") but in February1662 it was --

"Lord's day.  My cold being increased, I stayed at home all day, pleasing myself with my dining-room, now graced with pictures, and reading of Dr. Fullers worthys.  So I spent the day; and at night comes Sir. W. Pen and supped and talked with me.  This day, by God's mercy I am 29 years of age, and in very good health and like to live and get an estate; and if I have a heart to be contented, I think I may reckon myself as happy a man as any is in the world - for which God be praised. So to prayers and bed."

In the last year of his Diary, 1669,  on 23rd February he works at the office all morning, and later takes his wife and the maids to see Westminster Abbey (it was Shrove Tuesday): " and there did show them all the tombs very finely…; and here we did see, by very perticular favour, the body of Queen Katherine of Valois, and had her upper part of her body in my hands.  And I did kiss her mouth, reflecting upon it that I did kiss a Queen, and that this was my birthday, 36 years old, that I did first kiss a Queen."

We can respect his ambition for self-improvement, but it his great zest for life which springs from the pages of his Diary.

Quotations from The Shorter Pepys, © R. Latham and W. Matthews, and Magdalene College, Cambridge

Rescued from recycling: a Victorian benefactor

Old documents have always been at risk from fire, flood, decay, insects and vermin for numerous centuries, whether written on paper, parchment, vellum, papyrus or silk. As one Epharmostos writes, to his brother Zenon in 3rd century BC Egypt, 'Your last letter was eaten by mice.'  (British Library papyrus 2655).

Over twenty centuries later, the hapless Charles Pooter finds several pages torn from his diary: "Sarah said ... after the sweep had left, Mrs Birrell (the charwoman) had cleaned the room and lighted the fire herself.  Finding a burnt piece of paper in the grate, I examined it and found it was a piece of my diary.  So it was evident someone had torn my diary to light the fire.  I requested Mrs Birrell be sent to me tomorrow."   George Grossmith makes this a running joke in his Diary of a Nobody (1892), with Pooter's son Lupin remarking, "If it had been written on larger paper, Guv., we might get a fair price from a butter man for it!"

In a more frugal age, when most things were handmade and paper was costly, old manuscripts of all sorts were re-used, from parlour to kitchen to privy, and lost forever.   Yet, like John Evelyn's Diary, some amazing treasures have been rescued by diligent collectors.   Josiah Wedgwood's correspondence with his friend and partner Thomas Bentley were saved by Joseph Mayer, a Liverpool collector (1803-1886).

Thomas Bentley, attrib. Francis Rigaud,  1778

© Wedgwood Museum Trust

  Mayer was collecting Wedgwood ceramics well before it was fashionable, and according to Eliza Meteyard, "while few cared to learn (about Wedgwood's life and work) Joseph Mayer was hoarding up every little scrap of information, purchasing old deeds and papers"; until  "by a mere accident, as strange as it was interesting, a very large portion of the business papers belonging to Mr Wedgwood's works, passed into his hands."

Joseph Mayer the collector,   William Daniels 1848

© National Museum Liverpool

In 1848, he discovered various correspondence and old ledgers from the previous century being used in a shop and rescued them, recognising their importance to the history of Wedgwood.  Eliza Meteyard was able to use them in her classic biography, The Life of Josiah Wedgwood: from his Private Correspondence and Family Papers, published in 1865, and they are now safe amongst the Wedgwood archives, thanks to Joseph Mayer.

Staffordshire earthenware butter pot  c. 1650-1700

© Victoria & Albert Museum

Appropriately, these old manuscript pages were being used in a grocer's shop for wrapping butter - paper having replaced the earthenware pots once used to transport and store butter.  And wares like this had been part of the stock in trade of old pottery families, like the Wedgwoods in Burslem.  

1984 (in search of razor blades)

"And when memory failed and written records were falsified -- when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested.

At this moment his train of thought stopped abruptly. He halted and looked up.  He was in a narrow street with a few dark little shops interspersed among dwelling-houses. Immediately above his head there hung three discoloured metal balls which looked as if they had once been gilded. He seemed to know the place. Of course! He was standing outside the junk-shop where he had bought the diary.

A twinge of fear went through him. It had been a sufficiently rash act to buy the book in the beginning, and he had sworn never to come near the place again.  And yet the instant that he allowed his thoughts to wander, his feet had brought him back here of his own accord.  It was precisely against suicidal impulses of this kind that he had hoped to guard himself by opening the diary.  At the same time he noticed that although it was nearly twenty-one hours the shop was still open.  With the feeling that he would be less conspicuous inside than hanging about on the pavement, he stepped through the doorway.  If questioned, he could plausibly say that he was trying to buy razor blades.

'I recognised you on the pavement,' [the shopkeeper] said immediately.  'You're the gentleman that bought the young lady's keepsake album.  That was a beautiful bit of paper, that was.  Cream-laid, it used to be called.  There's been no paper like that made for -- oh, I dare say fifty years.'  "

Nineteen Eighty-Four  George  Orwell

Cecil Beaton's diary

"Friday, 30th July

...At 5.30 I went to tea with Emerald……The Princess de Polignac came in and said to Emerald, 'This charming young man came to dinner with me, and wrote me a beautiful letter.  Then, if you please, he sent me Tom Jones--but in a rare edition of two volumes of priceless value.'  This frightened me stiff for I asked myself how much that villainous Nancy would  charge me for this book.

I joined Jamesey at Rule's restaurant… I said that more people ought to keep diaries, but the trouble was that the most unscrupulous diarists were too scrupulous when it came to putting personal truths on paper. James said that Cecil [Beaton's] diary would be the chronicle of our age, that we would only live through it.  I said Eddy Sackville West kept one.  James said, 'We could not be hoisted to posterity on two spikier spikes.' "

Ancestral Voices  James Lees-Milne

Gilded spines

"…I  to  Paul's churchyard to treat with a bookbinder to come and gild the backs of all my books to make them handsome, to stand up in my new presses when they come."
Samuel Pepys,  13 August 1666

The Shorter Pepys,  edited R. Latham.   

The diary maketh the man (according to Mr Pooter)

"December 18.  Another thing which is disappointing to me is, that Carrie and Lupin take no interest whatever in my diary.
I broached the subject at the breakfast-table today.  I said: 'I was in hopes that, if anything ever happened to me, the diary would be an endless source of pleasure to you both; to say nothing of the chance of remuneration which may accrue from its being published.'
Both Carrie and Lupin burst out laughing.  Carrie was sorry for this, I could see, for she said: 'I did not mean to be rude, dear Charlie; but truly I do not think your diary would sufficiently interest the public to be taken up by a publisher.'
I replied: 'I am sure it would prove quite as interesting as some of the ridiculous reminiscences which have been published lately.  Besides, it's the diary that makes the man.  Where would Evelyn and Pepys have been if it had not been for their diaries?"

The Diary of a Nobody  George & Weedon Grossmith

Two Minutes' Silence

Sunday, 9 November 1947

"Two points of interest today.  Potato rationing, and the fact that I observed the Two Minutes' Silence in the kitchen here, with the two German POWs.  If anyone had told me on 11 November 1918, that,  twenty-nine years later, I should observe the Silence in my kitchen, with two German POWs from World War II, I should have thought they were crazy.  I wonder with whom I shall observe it in, say, ten years' time, after World War III has happened?  Hermann brought me two large turnips."

B. Charles in Our Hidden Lives, the Remarkable diaries of Post-war Britain  ed.  Simon Garfield

Posted to France

"Half past five.  And still Commandant has not sorted the letters.
.    .   .    .    .
At six o'clock the room is practically empty.  Those who are hungry for letters have given up in despair and gone to lie down.  The ten o'clock convoy may turn out a certainty, although the eight o'clock one is off.  Five new drivers arrive straight out from England.  They look half-dead.  They have had a drive of about seventy miles in the snow in an ambulance on top of a filthy crossing to Boulogne.  They are completely exhausted.  The tea is finished, too.  I am about to enquire of cook when Commandant comes in.  She eyes the newcomers severely and, without any greeting, turns to me.
'Smith, show these drivers to the vacant beds and see they report to me in five minutes.'
What a welcome! No wonder the poor things look depressed.  She leaves her door open.  I simply dare not ask about the tea.
'I'm dying for a cup of tea,' says one, 'and then I'm going to have a sleep.'

Poor deluded fool.  She has no idea she will be sent straight out to learn the various localities of the different hospitals, to take over her own ambulance at midnight.  She is lucky if she gets a cup of hot tea first.  It all depends whether Commandant has closed her door and I can bully cook.

'Smith.  Take one of these new drivers. Preston, go with Smith.'

The snow is thick now.  I am so cold my fingers refuse to grip the wheel. ... How am I going to point out the landmarks when they are all snow-obscured?  The black tree-stump on the left that leads to Number Eight, the shell-hole that indicates the turning to Number Five, and so on.  Familiar as the landscape is to me, it takes me all my time to keep my bearings.  We go on and on in silence till the station is reached.  We couldn't converse, even if we felt chatty.  The snow gets in our mouths every time we open them.
....
This girl has been twice round the camp...I am only supposed to take her once.  But so worried am I at the possibility of the wounded men being ditched in the snow ... or worse... I have exceeded my duty.  The result is she has not located one hospital correctly.

It is after ten when we get back.  I am so numb I cannot feel my feet.  All I want is a hot drink, a fag, a hot-water bottle, and an hour's stew in my fleabag.

There are four letters on my camp-bed ...one from my sister Trix, one from mother, one in a handwriting I do not recognise, and one from Aunt Helen.  They can wait until I am warm and cosy under my blankets."

Not So Quiet ... Stepdaughters of War  Helen Zenna Smith (pseudonym of Evadne Price)  based on the war diaries of Winifred C. Young.
[This is one of the less searing passages to read of those young ambulance drivers' experiences on the night convoys of wounded men.]

The purloined pages

"November 1.
Mrs Birrell called, and in reply to me, said: 'She never see no book, much less take such a liberty as touch it.'
.... I would willingly give ten shillings to find out who tore my diary."

"November 9.  My endeavors to discover who tore the sheets out of my diary still fruitless."

"November 11.
 Returned home to find the house in the most disgraceful uproar....Sarah was excited and crying.  Mrs Birrell (the charwoman) who had evidently been drinking, was shouting at the top of her voice.  Lupin .... was standing between the two women, and I regret to say, in his endeavour to act as peace-maker, he made use of rather strong language in the presence of his mother; and I was just in time to hear him say: 'All this fuss about the loss of a few pages from a rotten diary that wouldn't fetch three-halfpence a pound!'  I said, quietly: 'Pardon me, Lupin, that is a matter of opinion; and as I am master of this house, perhaps you will allow me to take the reins.'

I ascertained that the cause of the row was, that Sarah had accused Mrs Birrell of tearing the pages out of my diary to wrap up some kitchen fat and leavings which she had taken out of the house last week.  Mrs Birrell had slapped Sarah's face, and said she had taken nothing out of the place, as there was 'never no leavings to take'. I ordered Sarah back to her work, and requested Mrs Birrell to go home.  When I entered the parlour Lupin was kicking his legs in the air, and roaring with laughter."

The Diary of a Nobody  George and Weedon Grossmith

"Someone tampers with my diary."

"October 30.  I should like very much to know who has wilfully torn the last five or six weeks out of my diary.  It is perfectly monstrous!  Mine is a large scribbling diary, with plenty of space for the record of my everyday events, and in keeping up that record I take, (with much pride) a great deal of pains.

I asked Carrie if she knew anything about it.  She replied it was my own fault for leaving the diary about with a charwoman cleaning and the sweeps in the house.  I said that was not an answer to my question.  This retort of mine, which I thought extremely smart, would have been more effective had I not jogged my elbow against a vase on a table temporarily placed in the passage, knocked it over, and smashed it.

Carrie was dreadfully upset at this disaster, for it was one of a pair of vases which cannot be matched, given to us on our wedding day by Mrs Burtsett, an old friend of Carrie's cousins, the Pommertons, late of Dalston.  I called to Sarah and asked her about the diary.  She said she had not been in the sitting-room at all;  after the sweep had left, Mrs Birrell (the charwoman) had cleaned the room and lighted the fire herself.  Finding a burnt piece of paper in the grate, I examined it, and found it was a piece of my diary.  So it was evident someone had torn my diary to light the fire.  I requested Mrs Birrell be sent to me tomorrow."

The Diary of a Nobody  George & Weedon Grossmith

Holiday postcards

27 July:  "End of holiday quite definitely in sight, and everyone very kindly says, why not stay on?  I refer, in return, to Robert and the children -- and add, though not aloud, the servants, the laundry, the Women's Institiute, repainting the outside of the bath, and the state of my overdraft.  Everyone expresses civil regret at my departure, and I go so far as to declare recklessly that I shall be coming back next year -- which I well know to be unlikely in the extreme.
Spend last evening sending picture-postcards to everyone to whom I have been intending to send them ever since I started."

Diary of  a Provincial Lady  E.M.Delafield

"The Lost Diary" and the Scottish reviewer

"The Most Amusing Novel of the Autumn.

THE LOST DIARY by Horace Bleackley.  Author of Anymoon, etc.

Crown 8vo. Cloth. Price 7/- net.

Scotsman - 'Ridiculous situations, tangled misunderstandings, and humorous by-play.'

Glasgow Herald - 'This book is so good that it ought to be better.   That is our only complaint.' "

From Eveleigh Nash Company's List of New Books  Spring 1920