Diary of an “Average Man” of Long Ago

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12394, 13 March 1926, Page 12

Diary of an “Average Man” of Long Ago

IF the humblest of us kept a diary and it survived us by a century and a half, wo could hardly fail to bequeath to posterity a treasure of history and even of literature. Time is a great transformer; it turns the vulgar into the curious and the commonplace into the quaint. Thomas Turner, grocer, of East Hoathly, Sussex, would have been mightily surprised to know that. his. fragmentary diary of an uneventful lif> was destined to be published in the twentieth oentury as “The Diary of Thomas Turner,” edited by Florence Maris Turner. Thomas Turner was an eighteenth century nonentity, and his diary, if ever there was one, the Diary of a nobody (writes Henry Somerville in “T.P.’s Weekly”). Yet Nobody is very near to being Everybody. Thomas, Turner must have been more like the mass of Englishmen in his time than any of the great people who figure in the pages of Bosw_ell, Hov did the, ordinary Englishmanreact to war news in 1756 ? An entry in this diary gives answer ; “July 18.—I this day heard of th© loss of Fort St. Philip, and the whole island of Minaroo (Minorca), after being' possessed by the English nation forty-seven years, and after being defended ten weeks and one day, by that truly brave and heroick' man, General 81-akeney, and , at last -was . obliged to surrender for. want -of .provision and ammunition. No man, I 'think, oan deserve ?a brighter character in the annals of fame than this. But, oh! He was, as one may justly say, abandoned by Iris country, who never sent him any succours. Never did the-English nation suffer a greater blot.’ Oh, my, country I —my country I Oh, Albian I Alhianl I doubt thou art tottering on, the brink of ruin and desolation, this day! Tho nation is all in a foment upon account of loosing dear Minorca.”

The above fairly represents his spell-: ing, but he must pot, be thought a jingo. A year later he writes: — “jtins 22.—This day I saw in the ‘Lowes Journal’ that our troops, under the command of the Duke of Marlborough, had landed at St. Maloes, and had burnt and otherwise destroyed 137 vessels of all denominations, and. after’ destroying these vessels he reimbarkod his men without any loss. This success of our arms must doubtless greatly weaken and distress the French, who, I believe, are already in a very pomway, but I do not 'imagine this to be a loss to tho French nation adequate to the charge which our nation has been at in setting out and equipping such a fleet as ours; and yet I think *it is probably destroying—ruinirig and -taking away the life of thousands of poot umooent wretches that, perhaps, never did, nor thought of doing, any hurt to the British nation.”Every entry in the diary is'a snapshot, and every snapshot tells a story. His standard of sobriety -is never to drina more than four glasses of strong beer l otfe to toast the King’s health, the second to the Royal Family, the third to all friends, and the fourth to. the pleasure of the company. Yet he very often did exceed and .so, apparently, did everybody else, including the matrons of the village and the parson.

There is material for a novel-in the scattered entries which tell his matrimonial "story:

“This morn my wife and I had words about ner going to Lewes to-mor-row -. . Oh, was marriage ever designed to make mankind unhappy? I have almost made as it were, • a resolution to make a sepperation by settling my affairs and parting in friendship. But is this what I married for? How are my views frustrated, from the prospect of an happy and quiot life, to the enjoyment of one that is quite the opposite 1” . : > , Such Were his. sentiments after eight months of married life. On the third anniversary of his wedding-day he is writing:— ■ Doubless many -have been: the. disputes which-have happened between my wife and myself during the time . . . hut I may now say with the holy Psalmist: “It is good for us that we have been afflicted”; for, thanks be to God, we now begin to live happy.' Twelve months later there is a relapse : This day how are my most sanguine hopes of happiness frustrated I I mean th® happiness between myself and wife, which-hath now continued tor some time; 1 but, oh. I this day ‘t has become the contra! I think I have tried all, experiments to make our life’s ha-ppy,. i but they

have all failed. On tho death of liis ’wife, a’little over a year afterwards, lie-is full of grief.— June 23.—About five o’clock, in the afternoon,-, it pleased Almighty :■ God to take from me my beloved wife, who, poor creature, has laboured'under a severe tho’ lingering illness for these thirty-eight '-weeks,

which she bore with _ the greatest resignation to the Divine will. In her 1 have lost a sincere friend, a virtuous "wife, a prudent good ecopomist in her family

Thomas Turner never seems to have looked back, through his diary, and hs never accused himself of entertaining an angel uriaiVares. For four years his laments for his .wife are the refrain of the diary, but he tries his fortune again, nnd the last entry - tells; us that he begins to be settled again. He has married another lady, “not 1 a-learned ,nor a gay one,” hut lie trusts'she. is good-natured, and one that will use her utmost endeavour to make .him happy, and sh© lias material prospect's which will one day bring him something considerable.,, Arnold Bennett would not have devised a different ending.