Forty years ago, today, as a matter of fact, my brother and I together with our mother were going through Dad's very large trunk of diaries, he had been a railway driver, and had meticulously kept a complete diary of every day since he joined the GNR in March 1919. I asked Mum what I was to do with them, she said simply destroy them, so I did exactly as I was told,
what a shame. I can understand the dilemma though-clearly the records meant a lot to him but it wasn't valued by the next of kin. There would have been several archives who would have been delighted to preserve rare personal and details reflections of daily life on the railways.
A few years ago I was talking with a work colleague who had been left hand illustrated war diaries, photos and memorabilia of an ancestor who was a pow in Singapore. They were not remotely interested in them, didn't think they were were worth keeping for their children and had no idea what to do other than chuck them in the bin. By chance, a friend prompted them to write to Raffles Hotel to see if they would be interested in the material. Not only was the archivist there desperate to get the stuff, the hotel paid business class flights and let them stay all expenses paid in the presidential suite for a week by way of thankyou
so-I guess the moral of the story is, just because the immediate relatives fail to appreciate the importance or value of the records,don't give up-future generations may relish it or external parties may understand the rare opportunity to build a rich picture of the past.
could the material possibly be held in trust until the next generation can appreciate it?
