Diaries and Loneliness

By Tim Holman

Can loneliness be the real reason why someone keeps a diary?

Usually - no, or not very likely. But for someone who has difficulties with personal relationships, or a sadness that they don't wish to share, then putting their feelings into writing can ease the pain whilst telling their true story.

The more detailed the diary, the greater the sense of hurt behind it. Perhaps.

This thought occurred to me recently when watching a documentary about the late comedian Kenneth Williams, who died in 1988. He kept a diary for over 40 years; after his death this was superbly edited by Russell Davies and published. Its tone was often bitter and immensely self-critical, in stark contrast to Williams's public persona when he was alive.

The diary's true story is Williams's inability to come to terms with his homosexuality. Throughout his life he shunned intimacy and any form of close relationships, and the diary became his confidant. Davies expressed the view that "..Diaries are fundamentally about loneliness... It's having some sort of echo in your head of a voice which otherwise would have been someone else's voice..."

In other words, without a companion to say, "How was your day? How are you?" and so on, Williams had those conversations in writing, in private, in his diary.

This argument can be carried only so far. It implies that if a person is happy, there is no need to keep a diary at all. There have been, and still are, plenty of cheerful souls in the world who keep writing. Perhaps most famously, Samuel Pepys's epic work revels in food, drink, money and illicit sexual encounters. Not only that, but his word count probably exceeds that of Williams.

For myself, I don't recall ever being massively lonely, but during my late teens and early 20s I certainly wrote a very full diary. I have always tended to be a bit of a 'lone wolf' and live slightly adrift from the mainstream. Perhaps this explains the compulsion to write during my younger days (and again now, perhaps surprisingly).

Kenneth Williams's situation was rare, possibly unique, so with loneliness and diary-writing one doesn't necessarily follow the other. Still, it's food for thought.