Diaries: without benefit of hindsight

Our most recent edited diary from the Mass Observation archive in Brighton is Kathleen Johnstone's A Nurse's War: A diary of hope and heartache on the home front. It is rooted in her daily experiences of work in a hospital in Blackburn, Lancashire, and her days-off spent mainly at the home of her parents in the beautiful village of Downham, near Clitheroe.

A key value of most diaries is that they capture the moment. There is a sense of immediacy - a passing emotion (which is likely soon to lose intensity); vivid details that will quickly fade from mind; a fleeting thought, perhaps soon to be forgotten; a conversation overheard on the bus; a short-lived irritation or frustration that had at the time importance in a person's mind. A diary may be like a camera constantly at work, recording passages of time that would otherwise not be remembered, since new feelings and experiences will tend to erase them - or largely erase them - from consciousness.