My Lost Toddlerhood

My diaries are extraordinary because they were written by someone who was unaware that her toddlerhood had been stolen by an uncle who lived in her childhood home throughout 1968. I was 3 at the time. In October 2016, a month before my mother’s death, the message about my toddlerhood would finally get through: via my novels. I would then see the clues to lost innocence stamped all over my artwork, my stories and my diaries.   This article is about my diaries. My diaries My First Diary (1977): Innocence on the Page I kept a diary between 1977 and 1988. I had my first diary for Christmas when I was 11. This first diary, which was a Letts Schoolgirl’s Diary was small and therefore contributions were brief, being a sentence or so. My first ever entry was on Dec 26 1976: “Went to church. Had a fight with an older sister. She had the blame. Played organ and games, Mastermind and Top Form.” My 1977 diary On 9 January 1977, I made my first mention of writing a story: Solomy’s Tre...