Help…a more detailed guide to the site
You might find this page useful if you are a new visitor.
Wynne started writing her diaries in 1895. To start with, she sometimes covered more than one year in a book, but from 1907, she filled one large volume every year until 1931, a total of 30 books.
Alongside her entries, the diaries contain a wealth of other material, ranging from photos and original illustrations to newspaper cuttings, pressed flowers, fashion plates or post cards. You will get a good idea of this from the picture sections which intersperse the texts. She wrote in a fast scrawl, and I have left much of her idiosyncratic punctuation as it is, though occasionally for the sake of clarity adding a full stop, or changing a spelling. My own comments or explanations will be in italics.
You can join Wynne as a sixteen-year-old girl in 1895, just beginning her diary; in 1902, as a young bride; or read about her ten years later, the proud mother of three children, in 1912, in 1913 and so on, into the First World War. Then you can follow them to Africa in 1924 when the family decided to emigrate. There were many house moves!
This is the Diary section. You may find years incomplete, because that is how Wynne left them, but otherwise all her diaries are now online. Just click on a year in the timeline, and it will open the months. Choose a month and start your exploration.
If you are just getting acquainted you might like to start not in the diary itself, but in the special section marked by the tabs at the side of the welcome page.
I suggest you read Love, where you will find out about Wynne’s life before these pages open, and before her marriage.
It is divided into two, the first concerning her love for a young man whom she was forbidden to marry, and the second about her courtship and marriage to Herbert Jackson. You can enter the second section by clicking on Herbert’s name in the first square of the Love browser strip. This section will not change.
You might also like to meet the Family – this section covers everyone on both sides, from the formidable matriarch, Eleanor von Poellnitz, to Wynne’s children and grandchildren. This section will explain who all the names are, although I have often added short explanations within the diary entries.
You might dip into Editor’s Picks where I include some thoughts about the diaries and memory alongside some specific sections, like the one on Wynne as a young Victorian, or on Boer War newspaper propaganda…I’ll also be using this section to offer you convenient links to certain stories, like the servant soldier John Willey; or the friend, Philip Lyster, who was a POW,
Travel, Christmas and Fashion you can browse through for fun. They also include snippets from the earlier years, including the description of her boat journey to India when she met her husband. They will change from time to time.
You will find an increasing number of hyperlinks, which look like the one you have clicked to get here. These will help you connect stories easily within the diary, but they will also take you to other sites to amplify information which I have found interesting.
Finally, I have added audio memories to the site. These are clearly marked, and you can click on them, pause them, and alter the volume. They are the memories of Wynne’s daughter, Ysobel, recorded in July 1983..
Let me know what you think about the site and about Wynne, using the Contact email. My name is Peter Symes, and I am Wynne’s youngest grandchild.