My Diaries! What would you do?

You and I are both doing the same thing at the moment. I am in favour of keeping diaries. I have my late Mother and Father's diaries and reading them has helped me make sense of past events.
I am going through my own diaries from 1962 onwards and making a few notes about major events each year and sellotaping them to the front of the relevant diary.
If nothing else we would be contributing to history by keeping them !

I would make sure I'd read every last page again before deciding to keep them. Could there be things that you've written that could upset someone you leave behind? It's easy to forget what you may have written on the spur of the moment but completely forgotten about later. I'm talking from experience of having found letters, referring to me, from my stepmother to my father before they married. There were things I'd much rather not know. If you don't want to read them all again, then in my opinion, burn them.

Thanks for that information Gagagran - if I don't manage to get my 'memoir' published over the next few years I'll maybe send it to them.

When I moved I burnt all my diaries. They were from my early 20s up to when married at 25.

Definitely, keep them and if you have the energy you could turn them into a book/biography/ self-help/novel etc + love the donate your diary post.

I have diaries from when I was 16, now 70 and keep them in shoeboxes for the decade! handy if you cant remember when something happened or when you went somewhere on holiday. Expect the kids will chuck them when I'm gone. Only a couple of lines for each day now. When I read them I cant remember most of what I've written!!Interesting to compare how I was with my children and how my daughter is with hers now.

Maggiemaybe where did you find the grandparents journals? I'd like to do something similar for my GC.

Keep them. I've written diaries at different stages of my life, the first one dates back to 1963. My grandson, aged 8, was doing a project on American presidents and he was fascinated to see I'd recorded the death of President Kennedy on the same page as noting my school test results and the fact that I'd fallen out with my friend. All as important to me.

My mom kept a diary of her experiences in WWII when she was stationed in East Africa in the Air Force. She self-published the diary with photos a few years before she died. I'm glad she did. Something to pass on to my granddaughter.

It’s impossible for any of us to say how valuable such diaries of everyday life will be in the futur. But if you ditch them they’ll be gone for ever. How I wish some of my ancestors had written diaries I could read. The few letters I have that my mother wrote on the boat to Australia when I was 4 and when she started life in Sydney are fascinating and tell me stories about me that I had forgotten or remembered in a different way. I think it’s the Bishopsgate Institute in London that collects diaries of ordinary people. I wonder if Nellie Last (played by Victoria Wood) ever thought her wartime diary of life on the Home front in WW2 would have become such a fascinating TV programme.

Keep them! DH always keeps a diary and it will no doubt be a good reference in the future for us and the DC. He also keeps scrapbook photo albums and has done for the 40 years or more I've known him - I appear in photos about half way through book 1! grin

DD does a different sort of diary that she creates herself and decorates (can't remember the proper name), not sure what she'll do with those.

My mum kept all the cards sent on the death of my dad, 20 years ago today, and wondered on the 10th anniversary if she should get rid but I advised not to so hopefully she still has them.

I found a few diaries from when I was a student Nurse, many moons ago, I was fascinated to read the small amount of money we had to live on each month, but hey, we survived. How lovely it was to discover these diaries, I will never throw them away.

Please could I ask Maggiemaybe to handwrite a few things in her account so that her children have their Mum’s writing to look at.
I will, Overthehills, and thank you for giving me this idea, it was very thoughtful of you.

pollyperkins, I spent quite some time researching what was on offer, and eventually went for the Ryland Peters & Small Grandparents' Journal, the one with framed family photos on the cover and green binding (Amazon seems to be offering an updated version as well). It's a bit "American", and I've had to work round a couple of the questions - re my non-existent prom, etc! - but on the whole it's a lovely book.

I kept diaries throughout my childhood until I was 18. I threw them on the fire when I discovered a boyfriend reading them. Oh how I regret it! I'd love to read how I thought as a child. I would keep your diaries for future generations.

My grandfather wrote in a pocket diary every day. Sadly I have only a few of those diaries. One that is missing would have recorded who the distant relatives were who dropped in on us after Grandma died.
I have kept a diary for many, many years. I buy an A4 page a day diary, the current one was bought in 2014, so on each date I can see what I was doing on that date every year since. I'm near the bottom of the pages now but I might even squeeze in 2019.
I'll leave it up to the DDs to decide what to do with the diaries after I've handed in my dinner pail.

Keep, keep, keep.....!!!!!
I have diaries written when my two children were small (40 and 45 years ago!) and I find them fascinating. Your children can always throw them out if they like...!

Oh please keep them! I have a diary belonging to an aunt who drove through Europe with a friend in the 1920's, find it fascinating....also some letters belonging to DH's mother, and a list of what my parents bought for their first flat in 1938....all these things are historical documents, and lovely to read sometimes and to share with DCs and DGCs.

Thanks everyone for all the splendid replies with sound advice & links to relevant sites. It really has been a pleasure to read all your posts! The overwhelming advice has been to keep them, so I shall, being mindful of your comments regarding sensitivities! ??

A lot of diaries may now be history.
The Cheshire Archives welcomed my father's wartime diaries as a local record.
We keep the diaries but they photographed them and sent me a CD. My birth is now in the archives!

I wish I had kept diaries when my children were growing up. Then whenever I am asked " Was I like that when I was this age?" I can assure them that their children are angels compared to themselves at the same age, that life was much harder for me, and more boring...I love my children and grandchildren, but without a Diary to remind me, I've forgotten pretty much everything that ever happened when they were younger, so I make things up according to my mood. How would you answer this- " Is my daughter more like me than my younger sister?"Ahhmm..

Reminds me rosamund123 of the joke:
‘What’s it like having the best daughter in the world mum?’
‘I don’t know dear - you’ll have to ask grandma’. !!

Oh, keep them Urmstongran. Social history and all that! ?

Mmm, food for thought here. It's quite a big project to write now about the past (assuming you can remember, of course) and I realise the mundane details of day to day life can be interesting too but as others have said it's all more "stuff" for others to sort through when the time comes.
I agree about hand writing though. My dear Dad who had had such a hard life and started (hard exploitative)work at14 would really have been graduate material. On starting grammar school I found it really hard the change from being top of the class to being with lots of other top of the class. It must really have hurt him to see me upset, he took me to the local flea pit cinema, the only thing on was "The guns of Navarone". He then hand wrote me a note-which got lost in house move-about when he was a soldier in WW2, the night before action (talking Tobruk and El Alamein here) the pastor would advise them to "have stout hearts" and that's what he advised me too. What a lovely man and lovely handwriting too despite (or perhaps because of?) lack of further education. He always had his nose in a book. I would have loved to pass that hand written note on. . .

I’m researching my Family Tree, with help some several well known online companies. I would have loved to have had diaries from my Ancestors, even the recent ones.

I found my mother's diary from 1945 after she died. She wrote about the weekend she spent with my father in Worthing when he got a couple of days leave. With a few calculations I was able to work out that this was when I was conceived