Meg started writing a diary when she was a schoolgirl, and continued through her life. Here are some extracts…
- 1929 Diary: First book, begun in July 1929. Meg is 14, living in Bristol and attending Clifton High School for girls.
- 1930 Diary Meg is 15. Summer holidays at Paignton, trip to London before Christmas
- 1931 Diary: Meg is 16, still at Clifton High, takes her school Certificate exams. and agonises over her religious calling as a missionary
- 1932 Diary: Meg is 17 and in her penultimate year at Clifton High. She enjoys trips over the summer holidays, and is still agonising over whether she is a good person, and her shyness at social functions
- 1933 Diary: Meg is expecting to be in her last year at Clifton High, until she is offered a bursary to stay another year. Important exams for Higher Certificate. Many friends and a favourite teacher leave in July at the end of the year. Beginning to feel the struggles of adulthood, more moral musings, an ordeal at the dentist.
- [ No entries from 1934 and 1935 ]
- 1936 Diary: Meg continues her diary after a three-year gap. She is now attending Medical College in London. The year of the three Kings.
- 1937 Diary Aged 22, Meg continues as a student doctor at Medical College in London.
- 1938 Diary Now 23, Meg continues at the London School of Medicine, experiencing Casualty, Children’s wards and midwifery.
- 1939 Diary Meg is now a senior medical student at LSM (at the Royal Free Hospital). This year she does her first operation in an operating theatre, and war breaks out.
- 1940 Diary Meg is musing about war and politics. Exam results disappoint. Worried about Jim and Dad’s illness.
- 1941 Diary Working at Queen Mary Hospital for Children, Carshalton
- 1942 Diary Called up into the Army. Love blossoms, but things are complicated! Meg relocates to Queensbury Camp, near Halifax, Yorkshire
- 1943 Diary Tragedy at home, and the end of her first love affair.