Samuel Pepys, Che Guevara, Leonardo da Vinci, myself – what do all these people have in common? TheyÔÇÖre all diarists. Admittedly, my diaries fall more on the Adrian Mole side of things rather than the Virginia Woolf end, but since any good historian knows the value in a range of sources IÔÇÖll be bold on this one and put mine forward as an artefact of some value. Having kept a diary since fourteen, I thought this article could survey recent current affairs since 2016, but unfortunately the first four years of entries consisted only of an excruciatingly indepth blow-by-blow account of who was dating who at school, so that plan was quite short lived.
To any historian uncovering my diaries in years to come, the only section worth interrogating would be the entries I wrote over the spring and summer of 2020, when the secondary school drama came to an abrupt end and the only thing for me to write on was how the government restrictions affected my family and friends, and so I began building a record of the strange new normal we all found ourselves in.
So in the vain hopes of making it into the textbooks of my grandkids, I present to you a series of extracts from those pages. All of these are transcribed here exactly as written at the time, minus some spelling errors and with certain entries or paragraphs removed entirely for their irrelevancy. IÔÇÖve also chucked in some commentary in square brackets where it felt necessary.
A bit of context before we start, in March 2020 I was 17 and in my final year of Sixth Form. IÔÇÖve started the extracts from the first mention of Coronavirus in my diary, which I feel pinpoints the moment that the pandemic shifted for people in the UK from being just another news item looming in the background to something that presented a real threat to normal life.
March 16th 2020
CORONAVIRUS! Feels a wee bit like the end of times. Hope my future self can assure me itÔÇÖs not. Also, history coursework deadline this week.
March 17th 2020
I am an idiot. I have f**ked up my history coursework. The deadline is tomorrow. Twenty percent of my overall grade and its awful. My only hope is the exams, which will also go terribly for me. IÔÇÖm going to disappoint everyone and end up miserable at Bath Spa with no friends and no future. [Sincerest apologies to Bath Spa University, that was mean]
March 18th 2020
TheyÔÇÖve cancelled our exams. Hand is shaking too much to write.
March 21st 2020
Exams have been cancelled, theyÔÇÖre using predicted grades and teacher assessments to decide our grades. IÔÇÖve got six months to kill by the looks of things. Cardiff is down as my firm and I actually might make it. I think God might exist.
March 22nd 2020
IÔÇÖm having a lovely time. The sun is out, exams are still off. The whole coronavirus world ending thing pales in comparison to my joy of no A-Levels.
March 23rd 2020
I canÔÇÖt see my friends anymore and I probably wonÔÇÖt be able to for about four months. Bit scary. Homework still being set. [Context here, for a while the schools didnÔÇÖt trust the government about exams being cancelled, so were still trying to prepare us remotely]
March 29th 2020
The world has really gone a bit dystopian. I went to the co-op today and had to wait outside in a queue, spaced 2 metres apart from each other. It was windy and concrete and miserable. It reminded me of OffredÔÇÖs shopping trips in The HandmaidÔÇÖs Tale. Me and my friends tried to facetime last night but my connection is bad so I miss half of what theyÔÇÖre saying.┬á [The HandmaidÔÇÖs Tale was a bit of an extreme comparison, explained by the fact that the book was one of my A Level texts]
April 4th 2020
ItÔÇÖs been two weeks since school finished. It would be the Easter holidays today and I would be manically revising. Instead, IÔÇÖm doing home workout videos and watercolouring.
April 5th 2020
IÔÇÖm scared of the future. The lockdown has no clear end.
The Queen did a speech today, but itÔÇÖs not even Christmas. Has the Queen died as your reading this? I imagine not. [I imagined wrong]
[27 DAYS LATER]
May 2nd 2020
Nothing to report. At the weekends we have a little evening entertainment schedule: Friday quiz, Saturday film, and Sunday roast dinner.
May 5th 2020
DadÔÇÖs shaved his head and itÔÇÖs awful. Having a tea party for VE Day tomorrow so have baked cake and made bunting. [Apologies to Dad]
May 12th 2020
Friends cancelled zoom call, family is in a mood. Boris is saying we could be in this for the long haul. I donÔÇÖt think I can do that.
May 19th 2020
WouldÔÇÖve been my first exam today, history of warfare – yuck, so finding it very easy to appreciate the pandemic this week. Weather is gorgeous.
June 3rd 2020
TheyÔÇÖve released some info on how uni will look in September. On campus but no freshers week and still social distancing.
[110 DAYS LATER]
September 19th 2020
IÔÇÖm really leaving home soon – as long as no one gets corona. I canÔÇÖt quite believe it. I donÔÇÖt know what IÔÇÖm feeling. Panic? Nostalgic sadness? Excitement? IÔÇÖm sad about leaving Rory [the dog]. This might be my last entry before I go. Mourning my present naieve self because sheÔÇÖll probably die in the next few weeks and IÔÇÖll miss her. Yours, Charlotte aged 18 years and 2 months. [Not entirely sure what the sign off was about on this one, but makes for a nice conclusion to this series]
Conclusions
As you can see, the entries discussing COVID got significantly fewer and farther between after May, as restrictions began to lift in the later summer. Little did I know writing that final entry in September just how much the pandemic would continue to affect my university experience right through my first year and second year. I really believed at the time that so long as no one from home trapped me there for another two weeks via positive test result that I would be leaving the housebound life forever, but oh how wrong I was.
I hope youÔÇÖve enjoyed this foray into those early lockdowns. Since this is a column, I ought to wrap up with some bit of wisdom or present my case, so I hereby encourage you to start a diary. ItÔÇÖs some of the best free therapy IÔÇÖve ever found and makes even the most normal life important simply in the act of recording of it.
Yours, Charlotte aged 20 years and 6 months.