The parcel was suspiciously small and definitely didn’t contain the longed-for pink Raleigh bicycle. Or even a cassette recorder. When I ripped open my mum’s elaborate gift-wrap, out fell a red leatherette volume with the words Five Year Diary etched into the cover in gold.
I remember feeling a surge of excitement. The lavish heft of the diary’s design implied that only very important life events would be worthy of its gilt-edged pages. The brass lock and key held the promise of future secrets. Not that I had any.
I was a melancholy preteen who had dreams of escaping Kilmardinny Crescent, where we were the only non-white family. We had moved to the suburbs from Glasgow’s cosmopolitan West End. Across the tenement landing from us lived James Ronald, a journalist and thriller writer. He would recount marvellous tales of his exploits as a reporter and occasionally even let me type my name on his shiny black Remington. Naturally, I decided that I too wanted to be a journalist, despite the fact that everyone in my family was employed by the NHS.
“Well, you’d better hurry up and start writing then,” said my pragmatic mother when I announced my plan. Trouble was, I had nothing to report. But that was before The Diary. Its arrival was tangible proof that very soon, January 1977 to be precise, exciting things were about to happen.
8 January: Got up at 11.45. Watched Swap Shop. Went up to Rhona’s after lunch. We’ve got a craze on for blackcurrant wine.
10 January: Rod Stewart’s birthday!!! It snowed AGAIN. Walked to Mosshead and bought the Jackie.
15 January: Went to the carnival. Actually had the guts to go on the big wheel!!! I hate carnival popcorn.
Reading back through the pages, these carefree preoccupations are soon eclipsed by teen angst. Two years later – 20 January: Got my hair done at Baxters, £11. My God, I don’t suit perms at all!!! Saw J the K, I nearly died!!!
4 March: I wish I wasn’t so different.
7 June: Had a careers thing. “You want to be a journalist? A rather far-flung and irrelevant idea, you need to rethink.”
The strange thing about revisiting the minutiae of life at Bearsden Academy is the gap between teenage scribbles and my memories of those years. At 16, I had a fantastic Saturday job in Virgin Megastore, but all I have to say about it is: had to go to work AGAIN, it was raining!!! And it’s a shame I don’t mention one Brandon Lee in the year above me. As the documentary My Old School recently explored, “Lee” turned out to be a 30-year-old man, Brian MacKinnon.
But the most significant lapse in my narration is that I never mention the positive consequences of writing the diary itself. As the entries go on, I start to develop a more confident voice, filled with opinions and sarcastic humour: 3 July: Went up to Milngavie with the gang. Tried to sunbathe with everyone else but why should I? I’m already brown.
20 August: I need to find out more about Rock Against Racism.
There is no mention of the fact that my daily writing habit has led to publication. First, a poem for the school magazine and local paper, and then letters in Jackie magazine, for which I was paid £2 – unbelievable riches. I still have a rejection letter from Fab 208 magazine, a closely typed A4 sheet full of brilliant advice for my future writing career including: “Keep a diary. Like anything else, writing is a skill you need to practise.”
“Told you,” said Mum.
