On a Short-lived Diary

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 461: Report by Pan

The usual prize was offered for not more than /6 lines of verse entitled 'On a Diary Deceased in Early Childhood.'

I HAD expected to find some, at least, of the competitors gleefully rejoicing at an early release from the minor tyranny of daily diary entries. But this note was almost entirely absent (so, indeed, were a few of the more regular names— perhaps they thought it was asking too much of them to undermine their 1959 diaries in advance). The general tone was one of wistful regret, well sustained in some cases, not so well in others. A number of competitors found it difficult to main- tain the elegiac tone consistently and convincingly while avoiding the twin pitfalls of woolly cliché and jarring anticlimax. Nancy Gunter, who wins a prize, seemed to me to master this problem better than anyone else.

'Early childhood' was interpreted fairly liberally, though I should have thought that B. L. Levison s diary, which struggled on as far as June (after surviving attacks of loss of memory during the• spring months), had at least reached early middle age. Most of the more convincing entries, how- ever, administered the quietus during January.

Several entrants pointed out what we should have lost if some of the great diarists of the past had fallen down on their self-imposed tasks. 'How 1;reat the loss,' Gertrude Pitt writes,

If Mr. Pepys had failed to pen his piquant revelation.

If Evelyn, Wesley, Woodforde and the `Disap- pointed Man'

Their journals had discarded before the end of Jan.!

On the other hand some legally-minded competi- tors were quick to issue a warning against setting down one's thoughts and actions on paper. As Joseph R. Boyles put it : But this could be a dangerous game, Putting things down yearly : If used as evidence against, Make a chap pay dearly.

And now the prizes: two guineas each to Nancy Gunter and Russell Edwards; and a guinea each to Martin Hollis (so compensating him for four years of prematurely deceased diaries) and Lyndon Irving (which he earns for his last eight lines). Runners-up : Gertrude Pitt, Rhoda Tuck Pook and Allan M. Laing.

PRIZES

(NANCY GUNTER)

New-Year-born, your sun has set Now we hail the violet Coloured sweetly as the ink Bought in vain for you to drink. Three small draughts of which you took, Little early-fading Book, First a brave one, deep and strong, Then a second not so long,

Then a third that seemed so small It was scarcely seen at all, Shorter grown with longer days Till you mutely went your ways To a blank and lonely doom Ere forget-me-nots could bloom.

(RUSSELL EDWARDS)

Isn't it wonderfully gladdening When you get a Desk Diary for Xmas from your Auntie May, And find there's one whole page (with lighting-up times and phases of the moon) for every, day, So that you've really got space to record all the exciting things that happen to you in a positively expansive sort of way?

But isn't it awfully maddening When about Jan. 4 (Dominica] Letter G) you find to your dismay That after forty minutes' agonising cogitation you're obliged to lay

The Diary aside. without having penned anything in the least bit gay?

And isn't it rather saddening When about Jan. 9 (St. Eghert's Day), You find (First Quarter) all that you can say Is (Plato's birthday): 'Nothing happened today'?

(MARTIN 'tows)

(With apologies to 'Lucy') 'Events,' I swore, 'of deep import Shall fill her length : and doughty thought He given Incarnation.

To virgin pages will I bring

Each spicy anddelightful thing—

All meant for publication' So did 1—till the seventh day ! Then she began to fade away : She died and left to me

The times of sunset and high tide, A calendar: nought else beside. A waste of 5s. 3d.!

(LYNDON IRVING)

This paper Sibyl, who at birth foretold

The rise and setting of the golden Sun Within her pages edged with finest gold. Lies dead, her year-long race yet scarce begun.

Thrice ere she died she spoke her master's deeds A tryst with love, a rendezvous with friend, The buying of a powder, death to weeds. Then whiteness mocked her sad. deserted end.

No public grief, No boom of artillery For her lust leaf

Two days before‘Hilary;

Some private shame .

For luck of perseverance When the end came

In an old pocket's clearance.