In Competition No. 2774 you were invited to supply an extract from the diary of a well-known historical figure that startlingly reverses received ideas about history and the person in question.
John Samson outs Oliver Cromwell as a closet Cavalier in love with all things Irish, while Steve Baldock’s extract from the diary of Jackson Pollock reveals the origins of the great Abstract Expressionist’s drip paintings to be in a ‘drunken paint fight’. Sandra Hardingham lifts the lid on a darker side of Florence Nightingale. It was an entertaining entry: commendations all round. The winners earn £25. The bonus fiver goes to Alan Millard.
The second day of September in the year of our Lord, sixteen hundred and sixty six: Wearied by my wife, fled frantic to Fleet Street and thence to the Fountain inn where, after much musique and wine, was minded to wander eastward and there, sore addled, did stumble on tinder box wherein were pockets containing flint, steel, char cloth and shavings of wood. Staggering hence into Pudding Lane was compelled to pause by Farrinor’s bake house and there, needing light, did strike flint on steel, igniting char cloth and shavings of wood. Such was the mighty blaze and so fearsome the fire’s rapid spread, I did hasten back to my dwelling and there record this account which, judiciously altered, shall later inform my diary. And so to bed, ready to feign surprise when one of the maids espies the fire and stirs me anon to witness the sight.
Alan Millard/Samuel Pepys
4 August, 1914. It’s taken over a month since the faked assassination to get to this remote place, but now we can relax! I never fancied being Emperor of Austria, and those plumed hats were the last straw.
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