A window for your diary

by Nicola Shepherd

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A DIARY�is the staple of every child's stocking at Christmas and many a grown-up's, too.

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But after you have filled in your personal details, including blood group, and made careful entries of the family's birthdays, a diary's fate is often to be forgotten at the back of a drawer.

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There is, however, a big difference between a personal organiser, a tool of forward planning, and a diary, a weapon of backward reflection.

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The daily writings of hundreds of famous and not so famous people have topped the best-selling book list for decades now. Our appetitie for other people's observations on the minutiae of life continues unsatiated.

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Churchill wrote his every night before bed no matter what time it was, and no matter how much champagne and brandy he had quaffed.

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��Press Association

Alan Clark

Modern day famous diarists, the late Alan Clark and Tony Benn adopted the same disiplined writing regime: every night before bed no matter what the time. Now that's commitment.

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Woodrow Wyatt wrote about having dinner with all the most famous people in the world and, crucially, recorded what they actually said, so it wasn't just a list of heavily 'dropped' names.

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Asking yourself what you want to write a diary for is a good first question. To unburden the most personal thoughts or dilemmas As a record for your family or the world Or, like Woodrow Wyatt, just for the money

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Thoughts of publication are likely to inhibit the diary-keeper's observations and comments, but if you write a diary and you definitely don't want it published after your death, you had better lodge it with a lwayer.

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Alan Clark, and his inspiration Samuel Pepys, wrote in deliberately indecipherable shorthand. Pepys' code was only cracked many years after his death, but Alan Clark allowed a translation before his, to the joy of those to whom political gossip is the very stuff of life.

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A diary kept during periods of intense emotional, social and political upheaval is immensely valuable. The� Second World War generals who kept diaries did so against army regulations, but provided an invaluable insight into the personal tragedies and triumphs of war.

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Have you ever kept a diary Are you planning to in 2001 Who would you write it for Would you want your mother to read it Share your thoughts on diaries by visiting The AnswerBank� message boards now.