Found my diary from when I was about 15.  Blimey. It is hilariously awful.  My teenage self was clearly on an autism spectrum related path before that path ‘existed’.

I googled ‘diary’;

1. A daily record, usually private, especially of the writer’s own experiences, observations, feelings, attitudes, etc.

2. A book for keeping such a record.

3. A book or pad containing pages marked and arranged in calendar order, in which to note appointments and the like.

Well. My diary is a big fat fail on most of these criteria. About the best I can claim is that I had a book. A book in which I kept a brief, daily record of what I did. Excluding any feelings, observations or attitudes.

A random example entry (verbatim);

Thursday 16th October

M took us in car. Double English – test on Act III. Break. Maths – Essex numeracy test till 12.00. French till lunch. After lunch, library. Miss Martin told us about Merch of Venice trip. R.E; discussion about whether ‘decent’ people should get divorced. Geography; essays back. Walked home. Cooked pizza. Butterscotch Instant Whip. Watched Change of Sex part two. Julia/George bust operation. Slept.

Each entry is pretty much the same but substitute different lessons, teachers and flavours of Instant Whip. And interject a lot of “bored” and “borings” into the lesson descriptions. I suppose there maybe a glimmer of interest for my Southend High school mates. Maybe. But probably not. I find it so random now, looking back, that  I detailed ‘break’, ‘slept’, ‘walked home’. What was the purpose of it? It kind of pre-dates the Ronseal ad campaign. It does what it says on the tin. But the tin says ‘tedious life timetable age 15’.

All I can salvage from it is that I put quotation marks around ‘decent’ in the divorce discussion. Maybe there was a hint of a sociological imagination there.