My Back Pages
Those who kept a diary in 2020 have provided a service to posterity.
‘People who keep journals have life twice’, claimed the writer Jessamyn West – though it’s hard to imagine that anyone who has kept a diary over the last 12 months will be keen to relive it anytime soon.
Diarists of 2020 will, however, be providing a service to historians; there is the possibility that, once the vaccines kick in and the pandemic contracts, people will quickly forget the misery of the last year or so and embrace a ‘Roaring Twenties’ effect. It’s good to preserve the moment.
Whatever the reaction, pandemic diaries will deal not only with the isolation, the boredom, the confusion and anxiety that permeates everyday life at the moment. Their background is one of profound political drama: the rise and fall of Trump and continuing unrest and division in the US; Brexit; a China resurgent; these and other ruptures will colour the pages – though they won’t just be pages. An increase in personal record-keeping also includes social media posts and video entries. Historians will not have too little information, but too much. And then there is the question of veracity.
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