Simon O’Hagan is astonished by how dull his teenage diaries are
I included very few world events in the diaries I kept as a not-quite-adolescent in the early 1970s.
There was one, though, on 9th November 1970. The next day, I wrote, ‘Play rehearsal. Quite good. Home at about 6 o’clock. President de Gaulle died and a programme about Houdini was postponed. Gillingham won away 1-0. Watson scored.’
I kept a diary throughout 1970, 1971 and 1972 – an entry every single day, adding up to 1,196 of them. They cover my life from age 12 to 14, and I look back in astonishment that I remained disciplined enough never to let a day go by without writing it up in all its glorious drabness.
My preoccupations consisted of: the main events of the school day; what time I got home from school; what was on TV; the weather; and what was happening in the world of sport, chiefly the fortunes of the football team I followed, which was – I was a Medway-towns boy – Gillingham.
Rereading these diaries 50 years on, I’m struck by the lack of any description of my feelings. As a young male at public school (though not a boarder), I don’t imagine I was encouraged to explore them.
That might now be something to be grateful for. There’s plenty in my diaries to embarrass me – by 1972, a distinct strain of earnestness has started to emerge – but talk of love, sex or any emotions I was experiencing is mercifully absent.
There are absolutely no attempts at jokes. I guess I knew my limitations. I was a reporter, not a commentator.
Given that my diaries are so devoid of personality – no real-life Adrian Mole was I – what’s left? Hour upon hour of TV.
These days, we’re all too aware of the time we spend gazing at screens. But when I think back to my early teenage years, the extent to which TV was woven into my life is equally noticeable.
I faithfully noted every programme I ever watched: Steptoe and Son, Up Pompeii!, Tom and Jerry, the Tuesday Documentary, The Wednesday Play…
The significance of President de Gaulle’s death lay only in the knock-on effect it had on TV schedules. No Houdini programme! Bugger. I was fascinated by Houdini.
TV meant the news, and one of the few occasions when the wider world impinged on my consciousness was the near-disaster that befell Apollo 13 in April 1970:
15th April: ‘Went to cricket again. Played quite well. Apollo disaster. Got home about 12.15.’
‘Did nothing in particular’ crops up quite regularly. So does the word ‘quite’. Lots of things are ‘quite good’. Some things are ‘good fun’. TV programmes are occasionally ‘very funny’. More often they are – oh dear – ‘quite amusing’.
A huge burst of excitement rounds off my entry on Thursday 28th October 1971:
‘Had PE. Weights. In afternoon we had Corps and orienteering. I went with Dave Bellingham. We got 4 out of 5 points. Quite good. Very cold. Mum met us. Granny had come over. In evening not much prep and I watched Top of the Pops and Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Very funny. David Hull asked me to his house. Made plans with Tim Brenton to go to the pictures. Parliament votes Britain into the Common Market!!!’
By 1972, girls were starting to feature. On 23th January 1972, I wrote, ‘I got up at about 11 o’clock and later on Susan Packard and Karen Peters came over to borrow a record. In afternoon I had a play rehearsal with Mr Irvine, which I cycled to. On way back I went to see Suzy Perks.’
I suspect that the complexities of first love are the reason the diaries come to a halt at the end of 1972, when I turned 15. Life is opening up in ways that I don’t think I had the capacity to describe.
On New Year’s Eve 1970, I’m at home watching Morecambe and Wise. On New Year’s Eve 1971, I’m still at home, watching What’s New Pussycat?
New Year’s Eve 1972 and I’m partying at my friend Ollie Munday’s house, and diary-keeping no longer has a place in my life. I’ve never kept a diary since.
