Hello everybody and happy new year!!! Here we are - the first post of 2023!
We hope that 2023 has got off to a good start for everyone.
We're now headed towards the end of January. We know, right - where does the time go! It'll be 2024 before we know it. And talking of new years, we all know that whenever a brand new year starts, you can count on each of us doing at least one of the following:
Put our new year's resolutions into actions... while silently wondering how long that will last!
Use that new gym membership we got for Christmas... while silently wondering how long that will last and thinking up excuses to the gift-giver for why we're no longer going!
Try to make the last bit of that Christmas chocolate stash last longer.
Get ourselves a spanky new diary!
OK in the twenty first century, diaries and journals have been given something of a technological makeover where apps and digital files have taken over the traditional physical book format. But there are some of us who like to keep it more old school...
If you were a teenager in the nineties and beyond, chances are you probably kept a diary. And you probably had one with a lock to keep out prying eyes! I had my first diary from the age of eleven, and since then I've always had a diary, a journal, an organizer or a planner of some kind. I won't lie, as a teenager my diaries were filled with typically teenage angst-ridden musings, ponderings, and rants. Though when things were super bad (well super bad for a teenager anyway) I deliberately chose to gloss over the not-so-great stuff!
But I don’t recall ever having one with a lock (although I did want one!) and I didn’t wrap a hundred hair bands around it either – I kind of figured that that wasn’t going to stop anyone from breaking and entering! Some kids used to write or use stickers that said 'Private' or 'Keep Out' all over the front of their diary because if you didn't have a lock, that was guaranteed to stop people from poking their nose into your business!
I remember during one of our life skills classes when we were about eleven, the subject of keeping diaries came up. One of my classmates revealed that she would happily keep her diaries so that she could look back over them when she was much older (which would be now!) While another classmate was horrified at the thought saying that she always threw out her diaries when the year ended and she got a new one, as she hated the thought that someone might get their on hands on it at some point. While she had a valid argument, I can't now help wondering how long she'd been keeping diaries for if she was eleven at this point... and also what kind of secrets would someone below the age of ten have! What exactly would she write about in this diary of hers? Woke up at 8am... Didn't want to go to school... Had a row with Mum because she made Smiley Faces for dinner but I wanted spaghetti hoops... Yep - real top secret stuff!
Though I actually agreed with Girl 1 and planned on keeping my diaries, I went the way of Girl 2 and lost pretty much all of mine even though I don't really remember throwing them away - but somehow I lost them anyway. As I got older, I stopped recording my daily events, feelings and who had seriously peed me off, and it became more about reminders of appointments and other things I needed to do (which is clearly a sign of age if you ask me!) I still keep diaries or journals but these days it's more about reminders and self-care pointers rather than friends I've fallen out with, new clothes I want to buy from Top Shop, or secret crushes (my husband will be very pleased to hear that!)
WHY DID I LIKE DIARIES SO MUCH?
I don't really know why I loved diaries and journals as much as I did. I just did! Maybe it's because it made me feel super grown up and dare I say it - successful. After all, I grew up in the 1980s, the 'yuppy' era. And what was the yuppy's most coveted possesion besides their oversized brick-like phone? The all-important Filofax of course! So diaries, especially the ones that were made to look like kiddy-version Filofaxes, were definitely right up my street. Plus it made me feel very organized - and believe me organization doesn't come easily to me. Not even in adulthood! So it made me feel very important and as though I was on top of all my duties and social events... like remembering to buy the latest Sweet Valley High book; noting down when New Kids On The Block were appearing on Wogan, or watching the next episode of EastEnders!
On the whole, I was pretty good at keeping a diary. There were some years where I managed to fill it in almost every day religiously. Then there were years when there’d be nothing written after March! But I definitely had a fondness for diaries, and it was what I looked forward to at the end of every year - getting a brand new diary to fill in at the beginning of the new year. Even though I tended to buy my own diaries myself, there were a few years where I knew that one of the beautifully-wrapped Christmas gifts under the tree contained a book in which I would later write all of my inner-most thoughts, courtesy of one of my friends who knew about my penchant for diaries. And one year I actually bought myself two diaries because I couldn’t choose between them – how’s that for an addiction? I mean dedication!
I also really liked the ‘extras’ that came with the diary. These were the additional pages that contained interesting and useful information and pages for you to fill in as well as stickers and things for you to pretty up your diary. Whenever I got a new diary, I'd take my time studying all the interesting 'extra pages' and the layout of the diary section (yep, definitely had too much time on my hands as a kid!) before sitting down and earnestly filling in that all-important 'About' page that asked for information about your hair and eye colour; your hobbies and interests as well as the name of your best friend (which let's be honest, at that age could well change at any given moment!)
DO I STILL KEEP DIARIES?
Well... Yes and no! I still buy and use diaries but not in the way I used to as a teenager. I was probably in my early twenties when I stopped using a diaries as a vehicle to record my most private thoughts. Partly because I realized that my thoughts weren't worth remembering in the future, and partly because I couldn't be bothered to write in them every day! I also think that at the time I harboured ambitions about being the next Pepys. However when I look back, I really don’t think that there’s anything in them that would have made people want to read them five hundred years later. So it went no further than jotting down notes and reminders which is pretty much what I do today. But even so, at the end of every year, going diary shopping to select a new diary for the forthcoming year is an absolute must!
DIARIES TODAY
Today, I’m not sure that people keep diaries the way they used to. I used to manage a stationary shop and I’ve lost count of the number of organizer inserts and diaries that we had to reduce to almost nothing in order to get them out of the shop once we reached March. A lot of these would eventually end up getting binned. It’s hardly surprising – modern technology has made it so that we don’t need old-style diaries or organizers anymore. Our mobile phones perform all these kinds of functions and more, making it unnecessary for us to buy a book to scribble down reminders and our thoughts. It’s a real shame because to me, using your mobile phone – as practical and convenient as it may be – it’s just not the same. I find it so impersonal. There’s nothing quite like putting pen to paper, and holding an actual book in your hand. Yep, I can't help it... I'm just so old-school!
But that said there has to be a market for old schoolers like me judging by the number of diaries and planners that I see on shelves of stationary shops come September each year. There's so many of them and I really am spoilt for choice because despite treating myself to two in the past, these days I know I can only have one!
A FEW OF MY FAVOURITE THINGS
So that's my story with diaries. And here are some of my favourite and most memorable ones:
1. DINKY DIARY
If you were a British teenager in the late eighties and early nineties, you'd know that along with Neighbours, Home and Away, and Kylie and Jason, Australia's other hottest export that took Britain by storm was... Dinky Diary! My first ever diary, Aussie teens had got in on the act a bit before us, mid-eighties maybe, but once we had discovered Dinky Diary, there was no stopping us! And I think that this is where my fascination with diaries began.
As far as diaries went, Dinky Diary was pretty spectacular. More than just a diary, it was a full on organizer and I'm sure it wasn't just me who felt very grown up carrying it around as though we had an exorbitant amount of information to either jot down or be reminded of instantly! It was like a fold out book with a thick, hardback magnet cover that opened up into 3 sections: one for notes; the obligatory diary section; and a homework journal. It also came with stickers and these were all used with the utmost of care! The cover and pages would be adorned with illustrations of Australian wildlife such as kangeroos, possums and koalas. So cute!
Dinky Diaries, which were made by an Australian company Debden Associates, were very brightly coloured and were available in hot pink, blue, yellow, orange, purple and possibly red. Maybe even green. I remember mine being purple while my sister nabbed the hot pink one. It really was a craze among teenagers, and at my school just about every pupil had one, and these would often adorn our desks like ornaments so all our classmates would know which colour we'd all selected. Why they were never confiscated I don’t know as I’m sure we spent more time fussing around with them than we did paying attention to the teacher. I don’t think that Dinky Diaries or anything that closely resembles them are available any more which is such a shame because more than two decades on, I’m sure there’s a new generation of young 'uns who’d love them just as much as we did.
2. HALLMARK JOURNAL
These were tiny little square pocket diaries that could quite easily fit in the palm of your hand. I could be wrong but I don't remember buying it. And by that I don't mean that I snuck it into my pocket and walked out the shop! I think the journal was given to customers for free with certain purchases. Well at least that's what I believe my local stationers were doing.
These weren't diaries to write your inner most thoughts in as they were so small but rather just to jot down important events such as birthdays, weddings and anniversaries. I also love that there was a section that informed you about what each anniversary was represented by. E.g - First anniversay, paper second anniversary - wood etc. Although as weddings for my friends back then were a long way off, I don't know why I needed to know such information. And I'm pretty sure there was also information about make-up tips. If I'm wrong, then there's another diary I had that should be on this list!
3. LETTS' GIRLS' DIARY
The Letts' diary for girls was a slimline pink book with photgraphed or illustrated images on the cover which had a pencil tucked away in the spine. I think this might have been the only diary I ever had that came complete with something to write with. Great USP! However others have said that Dinky Diary DID come with a pen! Hmm... Not sure I remember that. And if it did... then what happened to my pen???
I bought the girls' diary in the early nineties and as it was aimed at young ladies, it typically contained pages that appealed to girls. Funny that! So there was information on diet, beauty, fashion, socialising etc. I loved all these extras that came along with this diary as I felt that it made this diary what it was. Letts could have just created a pink diary with pretty pages to fill in but they gave us so much more. And what I loved most were the weird and wonderful real life stories as well as self-defence tips which I still remember to this day. I loved it!
Check out our forthcoming post on another one of my favourite diaries - the FunFax organizer!
Did you keep a diary as a teenager? Do you still keep one now? Let us know!
Photos: Pixabay
Blog Graphics: Angel Noire
