I find it almost impossible to read my grandmother's diaries without thinking of Elizabeth Jane Howard's marvellous and heartrending Cazalet Chronicle. If you haven't read this four-book family saga covering the years immediately before, during and after the Second World War, you're in for a treat. Elizabeth Jane Howard is a spellbinder.
In terms of reading (or transcribing) diaries, I think grandchildren are just the right difference. Speaking for myself, I would not feel too comfortable reading a diary kept by mother or my aunts - even if that diary is purely a journal of record. Grandmothers are different.
Gran’s diary is in fact very much a journal of record, with little or no personal comment. But curiously enough this type of diary often turns out to be the most interesting if not the most revealing.
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