Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Jane Shilling  considers the wisdom of retaining private diaries. This is occasioned by the upcoming publication of the teenage diaries of novelist Margaret Forster. The case of Waugh’s diaries is considered:
What would Forster  have felt about the publication of her private writings, her husband wondered in a recent newspaper article, concluding that all diarists have posterity âat the back of their mind, whatever they say out loudâ. Can that be true? âWhy did he keep it at all,â speculated the editor of the published version of Evelyn Waughâs notoriously disobliging diaries, eventually concluding that Waugh had been âlaying down a store of experienceâ. Which is, I suppose, the force that drives all acts of personal record-keeping, from Pepysâs diaries to the current plethora of blogs and artfully filtered Instagram moments.
Having considered matters, Shilling found her teenage diaries and consigned them to the shredder.
