The last words in a notebook are often interesting. The point in time or space at which something begins, often in a diary, journal or creative writing can be contrived by a thought or emotion. We begin, begin writing, because we have something to (or wish to) say. But the end of that process can not be predicted. That final part of something is often brutal; at the behest of an external something. In both the cases here, the end of the final page.
Today that ending for me, arrived abruptly as I reached the bottom of my final blank page contained within my 'planning' notebook. I began this book on the 6th January 2017 with the words Gareth Wyn Jones expenses. You have to admit it is a roaring read. My last entry at 4pm today - the inauspicious words LW Pod. I know what that means, historians in the future will however be scratching their heads - well let me save them that opulence of dexterous endeavour - LW Pod is my shorthand for publish the Living World Podcast.
Writing in shorthand or abbreviations is normal in journals. 179 years ago on August 11th 1840 (to be precise four days earlier than this posting 179 years ago) Anne Lister penned her final written entry of 4 million words over nearly 3 decades. There is a myriad of cul-d-sac comment out there about Anne Lister since the broadcast of Gentleman Jack on the BBC and elsewhere. I have to admit, prior to May this year, Anne Lister had passed me by. Since then however this Regency landowning woman has beguiled me with her energy and drive. I spend at least an hour a day researching her world, both published works and academic papers. In doing so mostly avoiding the same-sex aspect of her life. But the industrial scale of her letter and correspondence writing leaves me speechless. How on earth did she fit in both the physical connections with her world, and write about it in 24 hours a day? Phenomenal.
Her diaries however began in Yorkshire as a series of letters and thoughts to her first lover Eliza Raine. Her last entry ended abruptly in a very remote, and largely unexplored part of what is now Georgia. And this is the mystery - what happened?
Her diary abruptly ended due to - that external something - we have no control over. She simply ran out of paper in her diary and was miles from civilization. 6 weeks later she had died of a fever. Speculation of what happened in those 6 weeks continues. And her death. An insect bite and infection? Typhus? Something else? Those who have researched Anne over years simply don't know, because nothing was written down, or correctly, nothing has survived being written down. Prior to the 11th August 1840 her world was for all to read in exhaustive detail (although this is only now being made possible due to digital scanning on-line technology). But what happened next? Earlier researchers have suggested that she and Ann Walker her wife made it back to civilization and only then did she succumb to an illness such as Typhus. That is very plausible as they were only a few days distance from the nearest town and she seemed in good spirits, if hungry when she wrote her last words.
My own theory is she did make it back to civilization but suffering from exhaustion. In the previous 6 weeks or more she and Ann pushed their bodies to the limits. And in this last entry there are repeated words and themes, as if she is unable to fully concentrate. Anne was 49 and therefore middle age could have been taking it's toll - her hair was greying which worried her, and she had had bouts of not feeling well. They and their servants were traveling on foot much of the time, across rough terrain, living in rural buildings with little food or warmth and an exhausting schedule. They had already had to turn back from a planned route to the Black Sea as it was impossible to travel any further. They were in no-mans-land. Did she simply wear herself out and the body closed down once she reached safety - often seen in people who work too hard then take a rest - it's then they become ill.
And that's what fascinates me - this ending - this end of that process that can not be predicted. Both her diary ending and her life.
As I look at the final page entry below I can feel her energy as she wrote down the day's events propped up in her corn barn. Did she have another blank diary with her which was never started? Or was it begun and then destroyed by Ann Walker as she chronicled her end of life? Did she write on loose papers, lost in the chaos of that 6 month journey back to Halifax in her zinc coffin accompanied by Ann. Were her last words buried with her? Or did she simply become too ill to write and these really were the last words of Anne Lister to the world, a world she so desperately wanted to be remembered by.
".....All our 3 men have left us to seek somebody or something. [Adam] came back in ½ hour. A- had had an egg beaten up & I had the [things] off my horse & done up my mackintosh. David does not know the road. Get a man to go with us to the village. He now says it is 6 (instead of 3) hours from here to [word missing?] & 6 days from here to [Muri]. Terrible! An hour lost here.
[and in the left margin] Off to the village Djkali at 6 5/.. & arrived at 6¾. 2 [sacles]. Arrange ourselves in the Indian corn barn (a little wicker place perhaps 4½ x 3 yards. Spread our [burcas] on straw. Now, 8 25/.. I have [just] in it the last 19 lines. High hills north & within ridges of wooded hill rising every now & then into little wooded conical summits. The sides of the hill furrowed and little conical summits on the ridges of the sides. Tea etc at 8 25/.. ."
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