A part of me has died

But first, a new thing!

You can now listen to an audio version of this newsletter, read by me, right here:

A few notes: What I say in the spoken version differs slightly from the written version, mostly to make things flow better for ease of listening. There might be an occasional extra aside in the audio if something occurs to me while reading, but the bulk of the content is the same as what you can read below.

I’m adding audio versions to the previously published issues of the newsletter too. So far there’s a spoken version of Two Ill-fated Romances, and Dear Village Print.

And… I’m thinking about starting a podcast, so this is me dipping a toe in the water … so I’d love to know what you think of this addition!

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Introducing the 1993 diaries

Okay friends, we’re in 1993 now. This was definitely the year I hit my stride in terms of long-form diary writing. I’d just turned 12 and I had not one, not two, but three diaries on the go - at the same time:

Interestingly, they each developed their own purpose. The dark blue one on the left is the kind of meat-and-potatoes diary of that year: a 1993 week-to-view. Obviously that sort of diary, with the dates printed inside, has limited space for writing, which was no good for me. So when I needed to write more, I used one of the other two.

At first, the flowery one was less of a diary and more of a notebook. Or — dare I say — “song book”, because initially I used it to write out the lyrics to one of my greatest pre-teen loves: the stage musical Joseph and The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.

In 1993 I’d only seen the show once (you may remember my “I want to be an actress” diary announcement) but did I let that stop me from trying to guess what the lyrics were to all the major songs? No I did not. More on that coming up.

As for the very twee-looking diary with the girl wearing a bonnet (and hugging a bunch of flowers??) — this one was a gift, from my Grandma I think, and though I remember feeling like the design was too young for me, if you look at the photo you’ll see it had a lock — and that was just next level diary-ing.

OR, it would have been, had I not kept the key in the same box as I kept the diary. Like right there, under it.

However. Even though anyone could have unlocked that diary if they wanted to, just the fact it had a padlock meant that it represented an extra-secure space for me, and so I used it to write about extra-personal stuff.

Like… my thoughts ON KISSING.

Get ready because I think this might be one of the most cringe-inducing extracts I’ve shared yet.

Oh, Teresa.

But, y’know, once I got over the cringe-factor of reading this, I found it quite sweet. I actually got a little emotional when I read it out loud to my boyfriend earlier this week. I’m not sure why, perhaps it’s the smidge of fear (no tongues!) mixed with hopefulness (lip balm day and night).

It just seems to crystalise something of this particular age: being interested in boys and romance and all that would entail, but also afraid, or wary, of it, too.

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Co-writing a West End show, age 12

Quick recap: in summer 1992 I went to see the stage musical of Joseph at the London Palladium and to put it mildly, I developed some quite strong feelings for it. And I really loved the songs. Alas, I didn’t have the official soundtrack, what I had instead was a set of cassettes called something like “The Musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber” (sung by no one you know). My dad’s sister had ordered them for me from a Sunday magazine.

I was so happy to get those cassettes — and then dismayed when I discovered a lot of the songs were just the instrumental versions! WHYEEEE, I questioned, when it’s a musical? The words are the story! It just didn’t make any sense.

I didn’t let it get me down for too long; I took matters into my own hands, and wrote in my flowery notebook what I thought the lyrics could be.

This loose approximation of Close Every Door is an example:

I mean, if you know the song you’ll know I’m definitely getting the vibe of it across; it IS very woe-is-me. Having said that, looking at that page you could say I might have over-woed my version — there’s at least a bit of hope in the original.

But then you turn over and find there’s been a very quick turnaround in both Joseph’s attitude and prospects!

Lovely to see the ‘alternate endings’ crossed out. “Get loads of dosh” would have been a fine final sentiment.

Point is, I definitely deserved that co-writing credit I gave myself at the top of the first page, if you saw it.

My name first, and then Andrew-Llyode Webber.

(Not a whiff of the actual lyricist, Tim Rice. Soz, Tim.)

One of the reasons I was doing this “re-imagining” of the lyrics to the Joseph songs was because I was on holiday in Skegness with my mum, my nana, two of my great-aunts, and my cousin, Stacey (who was also 12) — and I’d convinced / cajoled Stacey into performing a mini version of the musical for our family on the last night of the holiday. It was paramount that I got the words down on paper so we could rehearse.

While Stacey didn’t share my obsession for the Joseph musical, we’d grown up “putting on shows” for our nana and granddad, so I knew she had a theatrical side. We would devise those plays/skits in their kitchen on Friday or Saturday nights, then we’d perform them in the living room, probably sometime between Coronation Street and Gardeners’ World. I remember one year we did the nativity: Stacey was Mary, and I played every other character, including the donkey.

Years later, when we’d grown up and Nana thought we could take the truth, she confessed that on those Friday / Saturday nights, Granddad would hear us rehearsing in the kitchen and say something like, “Oh god, they’re doing another show,” while rubbing his forehead. To his credit we didn’t sense any of that agitation during our “performances.”

So on this holiday to Skeggy in 1993 (Granddad stayed at home) I worked very hard throughout the week, in between trips to the beach, the fair, and playing bingo in the arcade, to fill in those lyrical gaps and teach Stacey the songs so we could “put on a show” as a kind of finale to the holiday. I didn’t take my regular diary with me, but I wrote this in it when I got back home:

“I was Joseph, naturally,” really says something, doesn’t it?!

Something like: You might have been Mary in the nativity, Stacey, but now it’s MY TIME TO SHINE!

I wish I could go and watch our performance, and I’d love to see the look on our various female relative’s faces.

I’m sure I took it very seriously. I mean, look how I reacted six months later when it was announced that the West End run of Joseph was coming to an end:

I love that entire page of very high-feeling high-drama, but a couple of highlights for me as I re-read it are:

-Of course, that opening statement (which gave me a great subject line for this email)

-In fact, the first two lines are exquisite in their use of powerful pauses expressed through punctuation

-About half-way down I describe the second production I saw as being “spot on” which is so … funny next to the rest of the heightened language and sombre tone

-The way I just start listing the colours of Joseph’s coat mid-sentence

-"Sometimes, I even cry.”

Beautiful.

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Business, bitches

One last share before I go.

Last week, when I started to prep for this newsletter by reading through the navy blue 1993 diary — this was before I even opened the flowery one or the one with the lock — I realised just how many extracts I wanted to share with you, more than I expected, just from that one diary.

So I made a list of the various topics and asked my Instagram followers what they’d like to hear about first — and most of the folks who replied were interested to know more about the “business” I started at the age of 12.

Okay, cool, I thought, I’ll write about that, I’ll share the diary entry where I announce I’m starting a business, and tell some stories around what I remember about it and so on.

Then I opened the flowery diary and realised I’d used the space in there to explore this business idea in more depth — including price lists, profit projections… and I knew that if I shared and commented on that, an already long newsletter was going to get a lot longer.

SO. I’ll share those extra bits with you next time, but until then, here’s that announcement of a really great idea for a business me and my two best friends came up with:

Bunty, if you don’t know, was a magazine aimed at girls (more tweens than teens) with comic strips, articles and — I guess — space for young business women to place ads for their friendship-bracelet-making enterprises?!

Honestly, these three 1993 diaries have so much more to give. This is just the tip of the 1993 iceberg.

Make sure you’re subscribed if you want to know more about this very 90s-girl business venture!

As always, thank you for being here, and thanks for any of the ways you interact: likes, shares, comments, replies here or on Insta — I welcome and truly appreciate them all.

Oh — and what about the audio version: did you listen to it, what did you think, shall I keep doing it?

Until next time,

Teresa x

Here’s me chatting on the Alright In The 90s Podcast | I also make zines | I recently discovered this 90s song and have been listening to it quite a lot