Category Archives: Uncategorized

Diary Entry: Went to Tun. Wells to stay A[Aunt] Consie. Diary notes: ‘Aunt Consie’ is Edith Constance Beckwith Evershed (1868-1951), unmarried elder sister of Nellie Dell, and perhaps the closest of her Aunts to KPD, who visited and stayed with her in Tunbridge Wells on many occasions. The house Aunt Consie was living in at …

Continue reading “Diary Date: 6th September [1941]”

Diary Entry: Walked round Keston & Farnboro’ [Farnborough]. Dairy notes: Farnborough in south-east London. Near Orpington in Kent, it should not be confused with Farnborough in Hampshire! Keston Ponds, in Keston Common, are still a pleasant place to go for a walk. One of the ponds today: By Ethan Doyle White – Own work, CC …

Continue reading “Diary Date: 5th September [1941]”

Diary Entry: Day at Sevenoaks. Walked Knole Park & Seal. Diary notes: Sevenoaks – from the 1960s to her death in 2006 – was to be KPD’s home. Knole Park (which surrounds Knole House belongs, like the house, to the National Trust). This walk could well have been of several miles length.

Diary Entry: Lilian Richards came to stay. We had tea Chislehurst & walked. Diary notes: Lilian Richards seems to have been a friend KPD saw quite regularly during the war years; this is the first mention of her name in the diaries.

Diary Entry: Mother & I went to Richmond & Kew Gardens. Diary notes: Orpington to Kew and Richmond – presumably via public transport – can’t have been easy in the middle of the war. But ordinary leisure activities like visiting public gardens, went on.

Diary Entry: Went home. Diary notes: Despite the war, KPD had been on holiday for 25 days this summer! Home was, of course, still her Mother’s house in Orpington. The house in recent years.

Diary Entry: Went with cousins to Devizes. Diary notes: Not KPD’s cousins as far as we know, so presumably those of one of her friends.

Diary Entry: Went to Salisbury for day. Diary notes: Salisbury, then as now, was a major cultural centre and tourist attraction so it is not surprising that KPD paid a visit.

Diary Entry: Went to Marlboro’ [‘Marlborough’]. Bus to Savernake Forest. Cinema “Waterloo Bridge”. Diary notes: “Waterloo Bridge” was a 1941 remake of an earlier drama film. It starred Vivien Leigh and Robert Taylor (as well as C. Aubrey Smith, who had captained England once in a cricket Test match!) Further information here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterloo_Bridge_(1940_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2728428

Diary Entry: Tea Miss Noyes & Miss Owen. Diary notes: ‘Miss Noyes’ was ‘Moona’. (See yesterday’s blog post for more information about her).