Many people keep a diary to record their activities and to note down their feelings. The Highland Archive Service looks after many diaries from people across the Highlands. On this page you can watch videos about diaries in our collections, look at some examples of diaries, and find some related activities!
Learn with Lorna videos about diaries in the Highland Archive Service collections:
Examples of diaries in the Highland Archive Service collections:
Malcolm Blane
Malcolm Blane was born in 1892 and lived with his parents and three sisters in Windsor and London. The family used to go on holiday to Nairn, getting the train from London up to the Scottish Highlands.
Malcolm writes a lot about his time in the Highlands and includes postcards of Nairn and maps of his journey. We hold several of Malcolm’s diaries, which he wrote when he was around the age of 10. He writes about his life, school, history, nature, and railways. He also draws – maps of rail lines, diagrams of bugs and lots more!
Extract from the diary of Malcolm Blane, 1902
Extract from the diary of Malcolm Blane, 1902
Extract from the diary of Malcolm Blane, 1904
Hugh Lyall
This diary was written by a man called Hugh Lyall and talks about daily life on a Caithness croft including references to the lambs, hay baling and visits to and from neighbours in Caithness.
In one diary Hugh’s handwriting changes. On looking back a few pages we learned that he had caught his fingers in a baler and been to hospital to have the wound treated. He went back to work the next day and just wrote his diary with the other hand! In this particular entry Hugh talks about his daily activities like cutting hay, collecting lambs and the cattle breaking out of the field! If it's tricky to read you can find a typed copy here.
Lady Vere Cameron
Lady Vere Cameron was born in 1803 as Vere Hobart. She married Donald Cameron of Lochiel in 1832. Donald Cameron owned a large estate in Lochaber and he was also the 23rd Chief of Clan Cameron.
In this diary entry from 1864, Vere talks about her journey from London back to Achnacarry – the name of the estate in Lochaber. She talks a lot about the timing of her journey and the people she meets along the way. You can see she got a lot of trains but also took horses and mentions a car – this type of information tells us a lot about how wealthy people travelled at this time. Click here to read a typed version of Vere’s diary – her writing can be a bit difficult to read!
Donald Gillies
Donald Gillies was from Skeabost, Skye 1881 – 1965. The collection we hold about him has diaries noting local events and people. It also includes poems, essays and speeches along with a collection of Gaelic essays.
The first extract from Donald Gillies’ diaries is from 1935 describing a Shinty match between Oban Celtic Shinty Club and Glasgow Skye Camanachd. It also describes New Year celebrations and an accidental death at the Meall in Portree. This two-page example demonstrates the wealth of information about daily life and the ups and downs of human existence. The next entry is from 1963 and describes a fire on the Island. It shows how the locals had to work together to put it out and he reflects on the effects the fire will have on the animals on the island. If you can't read Donald's handwriting click here to read the 1935 entry or here to read the 1963 entry.
Extract from the diary of Donald Gillies, 1935
| 
Extract from the diary of Donald Gillies, 1963
|
Diary-related activities
- Research someone famous (past or present) and try and imagine what their daily diary entries might look like. Imagine you were a world leader trying to run a country just now!
- Keep a daily diary recording what you’re doing and thinking. This could be written or recorded through audio or video – however you want to express yourself! Maybe when you’ve finished you could think about offering your diary to your local archive centre so that people can look back at it in the future.
- Pick one of these diaries and see if you can transcribe it (work out what it says and type up a copy)
- Have a look at Malcolm Blane’s diary entry from August 1902. It starts, “One day at a quarter past 3 in the afternoon August 20th 1902, we started for a long bicycle ride from Nairn. This is the map….” Try and make up a story using this as the start. You could research what was happening in 1902 to add some facts in!
- Why not keep a photo diary over the next few weeks? Every day you could take a photo of something you’ve seen or done and after a few weeks you’ll have a photo diary to look back over!
