DIARIES OF YORE

It is a matter of small regret that I have never kept a diary. I say 'small' because of a feeling that had I done so it would have left me with shelves filled with the most banal rubbish. Of course, dates of occurrences are useful, and even banal notes can prove handy if you are trying to recollect something, such as what happened, and when. So small regrets, yes.
None of the clergymen-writers mentioned below did anything small, however, most notably Parson Woodforde, of Weston Longville, who was expansive in the extreme. Yet these three diaries, or more accurately their edited extracts, are essential reading for anyone interested in this region's history. They cover the period from about 1776 through to the end of the Second World War, not entirely in sequence and not completely, but near enough to give the reader a flavour of this span of 170 years.
My edition of Woodforde is a concise version, for the complete diaries would fill nearly all my shelves and do contain a deal of day-to-day trivia. But I love Woodforde, his sense of fun and duty, religious and familial. He was inquisitive. He did things, met people, went places, worried about his relatives and his congregation, and enjoyed his food.
By comparison, the Rev Benjamin John Armstrong, MA (Cantab), vicar of East Dereham from 1850 to 1888, was a bit of a sobersides. He noted happenings in the locality, but there is more of the touch of the scholar about him, involved as he was in the detail of church procedures. In some ways it is as though Woodforde's relaxed attitude has been replaced by Armstrong's Victorian straight-laced demeanour.
Indeed, the frontispiece photograph used in my volume, taken about 1865, shows him as a frock-coated clergyman posing between a chair and an ornate table, with his right hand on if not The Good Book, then at least A Book. He would have been around 48 years' old at the time, and he looks both serious and pleasant.
Completing my trilogy are the chronicles of Canon Reginald Augustus Bignold, rector of Carlton Colville, in Suffolk, from 1898 through to 1944; and indeed, many of his last entries written in the months before his death are concerned with events in the latter stages of the Second World War. He was greatly concerned with the First World War, too, and his concern for his parishioners, like the noise of the guns in France, rumbles in the background.
The bushy-bearded Canon Bignold - and a photograph also suggests he was likeable and approachable - seems to have been a hands-on sort of a chap, busy in all aspects of parish life. Indeed, he helped with rescue work after an air raid on Lowestoft, administering to the injured and dying. And he faced up to his conscience when, having recruited tirelessly in his role as Enlisting Officer, he then saw so many of his local boys killed or wounded.
I like all three of these diarists who, in their different ways, dealt with the troubles, dilemmas and delights of their times. Together, these pages provide a rich regional tapestry, and one we would not have had if they had not all taken the trouble to put pen to paper.
(The Diary of a Country Parson, 1758-1802, by James Woodforde, edited, The World's Classics, OUP, 1972. A Norfolk Diary, by Rev Benjamin Armstrong, edited, Harrup, 1949. The Carlton Colville Chronicles, by Canon Reginald Bignold, edited, Parochial Church Council and Norwich Union, 1982).