Friday, November 17, 2006

Read from Kilvert's Diary ...

I am now on a serious roll. Reading old journals and diaries. Finding them in garage sales and second hand book shops. Asking everyone I meet to rip out a page of their diary for me to kee, scan , analyse and write about ...YES I WILL BE ASKING YOU FOR YOURS NEXT!!!!!!!!!!

I am not quite at the point where I meet new people and say "Hi I'm Pamela may I have a page from your journal?" ... well not quite yet ... I have thought about it!

Today I wanted to share a section from Francis Kilvert's diary ... he was a Reverend in Victorian times ... due to the age of the book I am assuming it is out of copyright so I may regularly quote from this man. His very simple descriptions paint quite disturbung pictures (and I suspect he was a rather grumpy old man!!!).


"Tuesday January 20 1874.

Visited John and Hannah Hatherell. Hannah was telling me about an execution. Two young men of Bremhill named Powney saw the mother of the murderer striding across the fields to be in time to see her son hung."


The lesson? NEVER think that even simple descriptions in your blog or journal are simple. How many emotions and pictures does that short entry conjure up? Wow.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Simple descriptions can be powerful indeed

in the paragraph you picked out, a strong mental image does form... of the scene unfolding dressed in the clothes of the era

Anonymous said...

I'm amazed she could walk, poor woman. I bet they only stole something small like a loaf of bread.