Curiously cool retro diaries

Around this time of year many of us will be starting new diaries. However, it’s the old diaries that seem to be making the headlines lately.

A curious and growing trend has seen people flocking to read the intimate details of their teenage diaries in front of an audience of complete strangers.

I’m not sure I’d be up for this, though I did stumble upon some of my ancient adolescent scribblings when having a bit of a clear out recently. As you’d expect from the 1970s, these diaries have rather funky styling, with suitably fashionable retro illustrations.























I love the introduction in my 1973 diary, which says:

Keep it? Keep what?
Cool, calm and collected. Your head. Your temper. Keep dates. Appointments. A record of those special occasions. Keep your boyfriend. It might not be easy, if you fix to meet him on Saturday, turn up on the Friday and call him Ted, or Antonio, or Jeff. That’s what this book’s all about. Something to read, something to write in. A handbag computer or a memory-system that never lets you down.

Of course, the stuff about boyfriends is utter girly drivel – perfect, I guess, for someone who was still at primary school at the time. Much more fascinating is that ‘handbag computers’ were already being mentioned in the early ‘70s.




Personally, I still like to have a proper book-style journal. Apart from being useful, especially if your laptop crashes (or heaven forbid, gets stolen), a regular diary is also rather nice as a keepsake. If you haven’t got yours already, I'd recommend the curiously characterful L’Apres-midi Jardin diary from ShopCurious, which is undated so you can make entries and notes any time you like.

I look forward to hearing more about the types of diaries you’ve kept in the past – and you can read more about mine in my post today over at The Dabbler.

Will you?