The diary is tiny. The size of a phone with a cover of cheap blue plastic. I don’t remember who gave it to me for Christmas but it was just the right gift for me. I was determined to be a writer of some kind and a diary for me to record my every thought was the perfect start.

Privacy was important above all. This diary was going to be my confidante, my best friend, the only place I could pour my heart out. And as I had a tendency to drama, there was lots to share. But nobody could ever read it, especially not my annoying little brother who would be sure to use its secrets against me. So I carefully wrote “PRIVATE” on each of the first few pages – that was bound to keep them out, and I secreted the diary away in my bedroom.

Over the next year, I poured my heart into my little blue diary. My OCD tendencies erupted into full-blown obsessions, one of which was that I could not go to bed until my diary was completed. And most days, I stuck to that, only waning towards the end of 1981 – an indicator that my life as a diarist was destined to only last one year.