At the top of each exhibit page, there is a high-resolution scan of two pages of the diary. You can use your mouse, the buttons along the bottom of each scan, or a touchscreen to zoom in and out and move around the pages. Note there is also a button to display the pages in full screen.

To navigate between individual exhibit pages, use the < and > arrows at the top of each page. To navigate between years within a volume, use the row of years along the top. To navigate between volumes, use “The Diary” dropdown menu, which also contains an index of all the diary pages.

At the bottom of each exhibit page, there is a full transcription of the scan. The spelling, punctuation, etc. are as faithful to the original text as possible. (Myrtle was a fine speller, but she spelled “choir” as “chior” all her life. Some of those may have been inadvertently corrected!) An attempt has been made to flag when the handwriting changes to that of a family member and when the handwriting reverts to Myrtle.

Myrtle occasionally wrote supplementary information in the left margin of an entry. The practice here is to put this information at the beginning of the entry if it defined the day from the outset (ex. “Sunday” or “Easter”) and at the end of the entry if it occurred over the course of the day (ex. “Mrs Joseph Bagnall died”).

Myrtle’s writing is not always clear. For example, I long read one of Myrtle’s close friends as “Minna” until family member Alan Reed realized she was “Mima” – Jemima. Some transcribing errors undoubtedly persist. If you can help improve the transcription in any way, please Contact Us.