Lorna's war time diary

Our next port of call of our long weekend in Somerset and Devon is Okehampton. We have descended on Mr hazelh's uncle and family for a couple of days for some birthday celebrations. My parents in-law are also here: Mr hazelh's mother and our host are sister and brother.

Mr hazelh's uncle owns a selection of family archives, including the wartime diary of his aunt Lorna (Mr hazelh's great aunt), as blipped. It starts on September 1st 1939 with the words 'Today we learned that, as long had been feared, Hitler had put his vaunted war-machine into operation by invading Poland on the trumped up charge that Polish arrogance could no longer be endured'.

The section of the diary that I have blipped records a difficult time at home when Lorna was battling with her extremely authoritarian father (Mr hazelh's great grandfather, a veteran of three wars: Boer, WWI and WWII).

Lorna had enjoyed an unusual (for the time) degree of independence as an undergraduate in Cambridge and it looks like her father did not appreciate it when his graduate daughter expressed her own opinions. The text of the right hand page blipped  carries over to the next page:

'I am a woman of twenty six and a Bachelor of Arts. That hard-won title, outside of the house circle, gives me the right to be considered of something a little above the average intelligence. I can deny outright any charges that anyone may care to bring of having caused my parents one moment’s anxiety in keeping bad or extravagant company, being disobedient to their wishes, or underhand or untruthful. The only demands I make upon either of my parents are that I shall be accorded a common and loving courtesy, shall be treated in accordance with my age and the standing which I have a right to consider mine, and that I shall be allowed my own opinions which I am now well qualified to form.'

Exercise today: walking (11,008 steps).