Diary of an Ordinary Woman - Margaret Forster

In her introduction to Diary of an Ordinary Woman, Margaret Forster explains how she came to edit the diaries of Millicent King which Millicent had kept from 1914 to 1995. She was approached, she tells us, by Joanna, the wife of Millicent’s nephew. Joanna had read some of Forster’s other books, notably Hidden Lives a moving testimony to the (often difficult) lives of Forster’s own mother and grandmother and
feels that the author would be able ...
...creation and the book - Diary of an Ordinary Woman - is a work of fiction. Forster hasn’t “edited” the book; she has written it - right down to the last diary entry and editor’s comment.

Like the fictional Joanna I have read “Hidden Lives” Forster’s book about her mother and grandmother and also “Precious Lives” a very moving account of the deaths of her father and her sister-in-law. I know for a fact that if I was ever looking for ... more

In her introduction to Diary of an Ordinary Woman, Margaret Forster explains how she came to edit the diaries of Millicent King which Millicent had kept from 1914 to 1995. She was approached, she tells us, by Joanna, the wife of Millicent’s nephew. Joanna had read some of Forster’s other books, notably Hidden Lives a moving testimony to the (often difficult) lives of Forster’s own mother and grandmother and
feels that the author would be able to “ make something” of Millicent’s writings. She also probably feels that Forster because she is something of a social historian, interested in women’s issues and skilled at chronicling “real” lives, would handle the material in a sympathetic way.

At first Forster is reluctant to get too involved - she speaks to Millicent - now aged 98; still sprightly but no longer writing her diary. Millicent thinks the diaries may be of no interest but agrees to send the author a sample to see if she could bear to read the next eighty-odd years.

Having read the sample - which is from 1914 when Millicent is 13 - Forster then visits Millicent who is somewhat bemused by anyone being interested in such an “ordinary life” as hers. But Forster is interested - and she decides that she must make an attempt at editing them.

All very straightforward and believable - except for one thing - Millicent King, like her nephew and his wife Joanna, don’t exist. They are Margaret Forster’s creation and the book - Diary of an Ordinary Woman - is a work of fiction. Forster hasn’t “edited” the book; she has written it - right down to the last diary entry and editor’s comment.

Like the fictional Joanna I have read “Hidden Lives” Forster’s book about her mother and grandmother and also “Precious Lives” a very moving account of the deaths of her father and her sister-in-law. I know for a fact that if I was ever looking for anyone to edit my diaries (not that I keep one!) or those of a family member; I would find Margaret Forster to be a very safe pair of hands.(Some people might think she had a
nerve to “plug” “Hidden Lives” a “real” book in a fictional work - I say three cheers for her!)

Having read “Hidden Lives” it is easy to see what has inspired Forster to write “Diary of an Ordinary Woman” . She finds ordinary lives fascinating and having chronicled the lives of her mother and grandmother it was obvious that there was still a great deal more that she wanted to say. Thus the invention of Millicent King and the chance to cover the years between 1914 and 1995 and the huge changes that have occurred in
the lives of women and society as a whole.

As you can probably tell by now I’m a big fan of Margaret Forster’s books and I admire her for the way she writes about often difficult subjects with honesty. Her interest in social history and the changing role of women in society is genuine and always well-researched. I have been waiting with mounting excitement for this book to come out in paperback -

----- Has it been worth the wait -----

There is something about diaries - real or imagined - that makes reading them fascinating. (Not, you understand, that I have ever read a private diary - only published ones!) Millicent’s story makes for compulsive reading - on one level it is the day-to-day saga of one woman’s life from 1914 until 1995 with all the accompanying
trivia. On another level it records the major events played out on the world’s stage; their impact on Millicent and those close to her.

We are introduced to Millicent, aged 13, as something of a rebel in her middle class
suburban London family. She has an older sister, Matilda and a brother, George who later joins up and fights in World War 1 before being invalided out There are also younger brothers, including twins and to her horror - her mother then has another baby, Grace, in 1916. At this age, Millicent is something of a “stroppy teenager” (before such a thing had been invented) she takes herself rather seriously and bemoans the fact that she is always the one made to look after her younger siblings.
She is determined to make something of her life:

“I want to be different. I don’t know how. Matilda hates to be different. I am different already”

Millicent’s life does indeed turn out to be very different from Matilda’s. Matilda follows the conventional route: nursing, marriage to a doctor and children. Millicent’s life is less straightforward; it is full of false starts and abrupt endings. Things - often very tragic things - conspire to thwart her, time and time again. She never marries, but has several proposals, she is independent up to a point but to her family she is forever the spinster sister. She is always there, just as she had been as a child, to help out and
care for them.

The diaries cover a period of great social and political change - for society as a whole and women in particular. Millicent’s diary is a record of major twentieth century events - from the First World War to the Peace Camp at Greenham Common in the 1980’s. Many of the events are well known and well documented but, seeing them through Millicent’s eyes gives them a new perspective. Her record of the Second World War in particular - she initially drove an ambulance during the Blitz - made me really stop and think about how it must have been to live through those times. Her account of being at Greenham, supporting her niece Connie, and joining with other women to form an unbroken cordon around the base brought tears to my eyes.
Remember too, that Millicent was 81 years old at the time!

The diaries faithfully record the change in attitudes over the years. Millicent in 1930 (aged 29) agonises over whether she should sleep with a man she has been seeing for some time. She notes:

“why do I hold back? Well, it’s obvious. I am not that sort of girl”

It was not only considered “not the done thing” to sleep with a man without being married to him, there was also the very real fear of pregnancy and the stigma of becoming an “un-married mother”. Contraception was still something to be discussed in hushed tones and was difficult to obtain, even for married women. Compare the days of “nice girls don’t” to Millicent’s bemusement of the militant feminist, Connie in the 1960’s. She is on the pill and has one night stands with “massive and hairy” men. Despite this, Millicent does not think “that marriage and
children is the be-all and end-all for a woman” In her own quiet way, Millicent is a feminist too.

At times it was easy to forget that this was not a “real” diary but a work of fiction. At other times I was only too aware that it was a novel. Forster, in her role as “editor” often precis large chunks of the diary and dismisses their content as being of no interest to the reader. But hang on! if Forster herself has written the diaries, then
surely she could have made them interesting! On the other hand, being realistic, no diary can ever be of one hundred per cent interest to anybody (even, I suspect to the diarist themselves). What I found even more frustrating was the way, when something important happens, Forster steps in with her editor’s comments noting that Millicent never recorded the outcome in her diary. For example, when Grace, the younger sister, disappears (and eventually returns) the reader is aware that there are a lot of unanswered questions hanging over Grace’s life - but the editor notes:

“If Millicent did indeed ask Grace to solve these mysteries she did not note these answers in any diary”

aggh it’s like watching a really good film, you are caught up in the plot and can’t wait to find out how it ends when the lights come up and the credits roll and you’re left asking “is that it?”

I can’t believe for one moment that Forster was too lazy to think up the rest of the story - she’s far too good a writer for that. But it did at times feel as if she was playing games with her readers. To be fair, there are sometimes clues left for the
reader later on in the book as to what might have happened , but I didn’t altogether appreciate being kept in the dark by the author.

I found that I was unable to feel a great deal of warmth for Millicent. I admired her courage, her strength and her independence and it is impossible to read her story without feeling compassion for her. I think the problem lies in the fact the a diary gives a very one-dimensional view of a person. The reader only sees Millicent as she sees herself and occasionally as she thinks others might see her. I wished at times that she could be less serious and have a bit more fun. That’s not to say I didn’t find myself caught up in her life and wanting her to achieve all that she had so hoped for. She’s not a glamorous person and hers is not a glamorous life - Margaret Forster doesn’t “do” glamour - what she does, and does well, is write extremely good, solid novels.

So in the end was Millicent an “ordinary” woman living an “ordinary” life?
In her afterword Forster says this of her:

“she is as symbolic, in her way, as the unknown soldier; the Unknown Woman of her
times”

You will need to read the book to discover just what it is about Millicent that makes her both ordinary and unique and her story so compulsive.
Enjoy it - despite a few criticisms - I did.

Diary of an Ordinary Woman is now published in paperback at £6.99, shop around and you may well be able to pick up a copy for less.
 

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