Thursday night or rather Friday morning I spent all today with half my mind on this evening’s party; always only half mind you, so I never got to debating whether or not I should go at all. That is, not until preparations began, which involved my full concentration. Becca helped but refused to succumb toContinue reading “29th December 1977”
Category Archives: December 1977
28th December 1977
Wednesday night Well, it was pretty bad I guess. This morning when I came down to breakfast I did not know what to say or do. Mrs Gemmell said nothing at first and I waited. When she began I wanted to cut her off; I told her I’d packed. She was hating it but insistedContinue reading “28th December 1977”
24th December 1977
Saturday night – Christmas Eve, of course I’m playing Father Christmas tonight – Mum said she didn’t want to stay up late and Becca and Matty said that unless their stockings were brought in the depths of the night, they would be awake and that would spoil it all. So I said I would doContinue reading “24th December 1977”
21st December 1977
Wednesday night I have no authority over the two elder children because I cannot help talking to them as equals, as fellow-teenagers. With Nona this is fine; she is not old enough to be a friend, but she will act the age that I treat her. She does not badger for more ice-cream than sheContinue reading “21st December 1977”
19th December 1977
Monday night I must describe today too. I had a lie in until a quarter-past-eight – now that the girls are home I didn’t see why I should be needed to get up and feed the ponies. But the girls got up even later and they hadn’t been fed . . . Then I madeContinue reading “19th December 1977”
16th December 1977
Friday night Lucy Gemmell is a sweet person – by that I don’t mean cute, but considerate and genuinely feeling for other people. It has occurred to her how mean it is that I shouldn’t be able to go hunting, although I have done more than my share of the exercizing for it. Her profuseContinue reading “16th December 1977”
14th December 1977
Wednesday night It didn’t happen ‘tomorrow’. It happened the next morning. I arrived in Cambridge at about 2 o’clock on Wednesday afternoon and wandered idly about town until about five when I wound up at New Hall. A little later, seated on the bed of my allotted room, I discovered on leafing through my compiledContinue reading “14th December 1977”
7th December 1977
Still Wednesday night, in Bristol. I went to bed fairly early but read some of Jennie’s books in bed. I was sleeping in her room; I don’t know where she’d gone. She took me into the English department the next morning and we spoke then to the secretary. As I say it was surprizing howContinue reading “7th December 1977”
3rd December 1977
Saturday Oh dear, I will never, I fear, feel anything but out of place and in a sense homesick in any family however nice they may be, that isn’t my own. These people like me. The children, I believe, like me. They couldn’t be more considerate. But still I long for everything at home whichContinue reading “3rd December 1977”
27th November 1977
Sunday Mum home – it’s wonderful to have her here. I cancelled a pre-arranged trip into Dorset to one of my prospective families because I have so many now and one which sounds particularly hopeful in Sussex, which we are going to see on Tuesday. Today we have done a lot of clearing up inContinue reading “27th November 1977”
Dear Diary 