I haven’t read Samuel Pepys, The Unequalled Self, by Claire Tomalin since it was published eighteen years ago. It is very good. You will be aware that Pepys wrote his diary for only a decade, the 1660s, and wrote in shorthand to keep the contents secret from prying eyes. He had a point.
A diary is different to a blog. A writer of the former perhaps is published in their lifetime but often posthumously: Pepys and Chips Channon, say. A blogger’s output is immediately available online and through search engines, so an element of discretion dilutes the content. It’s a ridiculous comparison. Modern diarists dispense with subterfuge but nevertheless must take care. “Jock” Colville took time off from his post as a private secretary to Churchill to rejoin his fighter squadron at D Day. He was not permitted to make flights over occupied France prior to D Day in case his diary revealed the invasion plan. Of course he could have left his diary on his bedside table but perhaps there was a thought that if he was captured and his role discovered he might be put under pressure to speak up.
General Alan Brooke did not intend his diaries to be published and so was most indiscreet. These days he would be prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act. When Arthur Bryant published an edited version, The Turn of the Tide, in 1957 he made some important changes to the text. I am getting to know Alan Brooke better through his diaries and admire him for his steadfast simplicity and find his adoration of his wife and children touching but a bit cringe-making – “those two wee persons”. He kept his diary I think in case he was killed as something for his wife to remember him by. He saw no reason to keep quiet about the radio intercepts he was fed. Bryant tactfully changes them to intelligence reports. BP (Bletchley Park) was a big, well-kept secret until the late 1970s but General Brooke seemed to be unaware.
16th April 1942
Took lunch in car and went to see the organisation for breaking down ciphers – a wonderful set of professors and genii! I marvel at the work they succeed in doing.
28th June 1945
Andrew Cunningham and Sinclair came to lunch after which we motored out to “The Park” where all the decoding and deciphering is carried out. I began by addressing some 400 of the workers who consist of all 3 services, both sexes, and civilians. They come from every sort of life, professors, students, actors, dancers, mathematicians, electricians, signallers, etc etc. I thanked them on behalf of the Chiefs of Staff and congratulated them on the results of their work. We then toured round the establishment and had tea before returning.
As an aside, it is quite remarkable the number of meals and in-between meals that General Brooke tucks away in the course of duty while keeping his figure.
I’m glad you are getting to know and admire Alan Brooke better. Surely a private diary is the only place one may be permitted to be mawkish. He was under intolerable pressure throughout the Second World War and sought solace in thinking about his wife and children at the end of each long day. David Fraser in his biography of the field marshal gets to the truth:
‘As head of the British Army Brooke commanded the admiration – and often induced the fear – of all. But, although formidable, Brooke was at heart a kind and sensitive human being, one loved by his few intimates, one for the gentle and understanding gesture where it was appropriate, one who took infinite trouble with ostensibly unimportant people, one who could talk directly and as one man to another with anybody of whatever degree, one totally without pomposity. His integrity shone.’