A BRIEF HISTORY OF:

DIARIES

“I woke early this morning washed out and rather dazed. The old year broken like the waves that are running high along the Ness.” Derek Jarman, January 1, 1992

Who was the first diarist? You could maybe make a case for Sei Shonagon, chronicling her years as a court lady in Japan in her Pillow Book a millennium ago. The modern idea of the diary can be traced back to Renaissance Italy, but it’s Samuel Pepys in 17th-century London who is the quintessential diarist. Along with his contemporary John Evelyn, he was eyewitness to the Plague and the Great Fire of London.

The other attraction of the diary is the notion that they offer an unexpurgated, insider version of reality. That accounts for the continuing relevance of the political diary, from Henry Channon’s to Tony Benn’s.

They offer an alternative to the airbrushed political memoir where all the dirt and dust of political life is safely concealed. We want to know what happened behind closed doors. It’s why the Sunday Times could be duped by forger Konrad Kujau into buying his “Hitler Diaries”.

But diaries can offer more than political gossip. During the Second World War in the ghettos of Krakow, Warsaw, and many others, Jewish men and women and children recorded their experiences. Their words were a witness to horror, yes, but more than that too. They were a reminder that, whatever the Nazis might say, here were people too.

In Amsterdam a young girl, Anne Frank, pictured, did the same.