SOMETIMES you frighten yourself. So what is it, exactly? A punishment? A distraction? A relief? You’re not sure. You tell yourself that it happened more than four years ago, that it doesn’t matter anymore and nothing you can do can change a thing. But you don’t listen, do you? All you do is go back to that nasty little green book.

Thursday, 2 January 1930 Tomorrow I shall go to Bleeding Heart Square for the first time. It was young Mr. Orburn’s idea. I always think of him as young Mr. Orburn, though he must be 35 or 40 if he’s a day. He is young compared with his father, who used to call at my aunt’s, and she would give him Madeira and seed cake. All those years ago-how time flies. This is my first entry in the diary, and I feel rather awkward as though I were talking to someone I had only just met. My niece gave me the diary when I spent Christmas Day with my brother and his family. I suppose it was kind of them to ask me, and it was certainly better than having to eat my Christmas dinner at the Rushmere Hotel with the other residents who don’t have a family to ask them elsewhere. All the same, it was a little awkward. Anyway, this is the beginning of a new year and I’m going to put my best foot forward. I have made several resolutions-I shall be cheerful, I shall think of others less fortunate than myself and try to help them, I shall reread every book in the New Testament and make notes as I go.