Journal - Dear Kitty

I was gifted a five year diary when I was about fourteen. Someone, an adult, made unkind remarks about me and diary keeping. I was a sensitive soul and the book remained untouched in a drawer for a year.

I started to write a diary, or journal when I was fifteen. From age seventeen, I missed a lot of years when recording my life on paper wasn’t a priority. I wish it had been, then I could look back on events, see the person I was and compare myself with who I am now. Life is what makes us who we are. Life throws things at us and how we deal with those ups and downs shapes us. Ideally, we learn from life’s experiences, good and bad, and avoid repeating mistakes. No need to beat ourselves up if we don’t get it right. It’s a shame I don’t have the missing bits written down, but there was a time when keeping a diary got me into a spot of bother and another time when it caused me great embarrassment, so perhaps it is a good thing. Why, then, I wonder, do I bother to write a journal now, most days? I see it as therapeutic rather than self-indulgent and hopefully it’s a therapy that does me good and creates memories to read back on. For me, that is. I can’t imagine anyone else being interested.

When Anne Frank began writing to Kitty, she had no idea of the impact those two years of her recorded life would eventually have on the rest of the world. She received a diary for her 13th birthday in June, 1942. A month later, she and her family were in hiding. Her ‘Dear Kitty’ diary entries tell of her hopes and dreams and her adolescent awareness as she developed an attraction for Peter van Pels, who shared the hiding place with his family. She wrote of personal relationships with her family and Peter’s family, her fear of discovery and worries about the disappearance of Jews. Anne died in Belsen concentration camp in 1944. She was fifteen years old. Her diary, discovered by her father, was first published in the UK in 1952, as ‘Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl’. I have laughed and cried my way through that book. It is more than special.

There are many novels written in the epistolary form. I’ll mention a few favourites. ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’ by Anne Bronte is framed round letters from the character Gilbert Markham to his friend about events connected with his meeting with the character Helen Graham, the tenant. ‘The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 and Three Quarters’, by Sue Townsend, is written as a diary. ‘Dracula’ by Bram Stoker, based on letters and newspaper articles is a Gothic horror story which has done a lot for Whitby tourism.

My Haiku,

Secrets coded in
Fountain pen and turquoise ink,
When I was fifteen.

In difficult times,
Between neatly written lines
Are tears of despair.

Cutting my own path,
Italics with flourishes
Speak of confidence.

Scribbled in biro,
Telling of the days events
With love and laughter.

“Look how far you’ve come!”
I remind myself to take
The best from each day.

PMW 2025

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Insomnia - Goodnight

According to my husband who is the only person to know this, I am fast asleep as soon as I’ve wished him goodnight. If only I could stay that way until morning. About an hour later, I’m awake, needing the bathroom and this is the pattern through the night, every night. Most times I’m immediately off to sleep again, sometimes not. The nights of waiting for everyone to be home before I can settle properly are long gone, thank goodness.

It doesn’t take much to spook me. Our neighbourhood is quiet, so the slightest sound outside puts me on full alert and I lie still, listening, worrying about someone on the prowl, tampering with doors and cars. I dare to peep but I can’t focus straight away and I’m scared of being noticed, if there is anyone. I’m on another visit to the bathroom.

I wonder if I heard a noise downstairs, or if the toilet flush just sounded like it was something. I rush back to the safety of the bedroom before anything looms out of the darkness. Sirens, there’s always bloody sirens, even at silly o’clock. I’d love to know what’s going on, or maybe it is better that I don’t. I’m safe and cosy under the duvet.

I’m falling from a great height. There’s a loud bang before I hit the bottom of wherever I was going to land. I don’t know if it was a real bang or if I was dreaming. I’m awake again, but paralysed, listening to silence. It sounded like a car crash. If I’m meant to know, I’ll find out. Stay still, stay safe. Go back to sleep.

Disturbed again. This time my coughing wakes me up. I’m coughing due to acid reflux. And coughing makes me need the bathroom again. I sip some water and sit up in bed for a few minutes playing Tetris or Block Puzzle on my phone. I can settle again now that the coughing has stopped.

Insomnia, maybe it is, or maybe not. Night after night is like this. I don’t fit into any recognised category except having a sensitive bladder, a result of surgery. I’m not aware of stress or anxiety. When morning comes I’m dead to the world, in a deep sleep which probably started around four a.m.

Here’s Philip Larkin,

How to Sleep

Child in the womb,
Or saint on a tomb –
Which way shall I lie
To fall asleep?
The keen moon stares
From the back of the sky,
The clouds are all home
Like driven sheep.

Bright drops of time,
One and two chime,
I turn and lie straight
With folded hands;
Convent-child, Pope,
They chose this state,
And their minds are wiped calm
As sea-levelled sands.

So my thoughts are:
But sleep stays as far,
Till I crouch on one side
Like a foetus again –
For sleeping, like death,
Must be won without pride,
With a nod from nature,
With a lack of strain,
And a loss of stature.

           Philip Larkin, 1922 - 1985

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Distilling - Mary Quant Socks

Everything I know about distilling will fit inside one tiny test-tube, with room to spare, so forgive me if I float off topic.

There was something we did in third year science at school which involved making a mixture of salt water then slowly heating it with a Bunsen burner – lots of science lab apparatus was fastened together for this experiment – steam turned into condensation which dripped from a tube into a flask as pure water, or rather, distilled water with the salt now removed. I don’t know what the object of this lesson was. My attention was distracted by the showing-up I’d just been given by my form teacher because of the socks I was wearing. I arrived at Science still in tears and being comforted by a couple of friends.

School was fairly liberal when it came to uniform. As long as we kept within the given choices, wore our ties properly tied and looked presentable, we were fine. The choice of socks was knee length, white or navy. This particular day I was wearing navy – with a pattern of Mary Quant flowers in the knit. Oh dear. I’d been to stay with family in Roehampton at half term and my aunt had taken me to London’s trendy shops where I got these lovely socks. They failed to appeal to my form teacher. First, he asked what team I was playing for then he pulled me out of line and told the rest of the class to look at my socks. This generated lots of mockery, more than I could cope with and to add to my embarrassment, I started crying. I think I took the teacher by surprise because I wasn’t generally thought of as sensitive, but neither was I considered to be a rebel. He pushed me back into the line with “Don’t wear them for school again.” I sobbed all the way to the science labs. Accumulated worries of home, family and school just burst in that instant, like they do when you’re fourteen, hormonal and half-orphaned.

Years passed, well, decades I suppose, and someone suggested I look up my school on Friends Reunited. I did, and amongst some recognised names from my year, was the form teacher. I made contact, mentioning the socks. It was ages before he replied. He was glad to hear from me, didn’t remember the sock incident, but did remember me as a clever girl with a talent for writing. Oh, that’s ok – probably mixed me up with someone else. By this time he had moved his family to the south of England and had become a parish priest in the Anglican Church, bless him. I was a Sunday School teacher in the Methodist Church so we shared common ground and we were on first name terms on our emails. He's at least twenty-five years older than me, so if he's still with us, I hope he’s still doing fine.

As for the science lesson, I copied notes from classmates and drew the set-up, as required. The socks remained at home, never mentioned again.

On our visits to various places in Scotland, we’ve looked at visiting whisky distilleries. One, in the Highlands somewhere, was quite big and we didn’t want to leave the dog in the car too long, so we gave it a miss. There is one at Bladnoch near Wigtown in Dumfries & Galloway which we decided to have a look at. The day we went, the distillery was closed to visitors, only the gift shop was open. The distillery remains on our ‘to do’ list.

I found this poem. It was in Seattle Magazine, USA, by Joseph O’Leary.

 

Whisky, Drink Divine

Whisky, drink divine!

Why should drivellers bore us

With the praise of wine

While we’ve thee before us?

Were it not a shame,

Whilst we gayly fling thee

To our lips of flame,

If we could not sing thee?

 

Joseph O’Leary

Thanks for reading, stay safe and keep well. Pam x

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