The diaries of Joanna Hutchison -- Bill Kirton
I want to share an experience of no apparent import which has, nonetheless, proved to have a lot of personal significance. Many years ago, in a junk/antiques shop in Edinburgh, I bought a bundle of twelve old notebooks. They were some of the personal diaries of a lady called Joanna Hutchison, kept meticulously by her over the years from 1889 to 1921. I was fascinated to get to know whatever they revealed about the writer, so I learned to decipher her tiny writing and read through each one. It took several weeks and the personality they revealed left me with an even greater curiosity about her. Since then, they have sat undisturbed on the top shelf of one of my bookcases. Then, some weeks ago, a chance reference during a regular weekly online meeting with my five siblings reminded me of the diaries and, knowing the impressive research skills of my youngest sister, Lesley Taylor, I asked whether she could shed any further light on the mystery of Ms Hutchison, of whom I had only the f...