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| Transcribed by Kay & John Collins, 2008 |
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Ada Sail - Introduction to Diary transcipts
& Ada's Poems |
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Introductory notes. Ada Sail was born on April 9th 1916 and lived with her parents at 39 Crabb Street. Her father George lived at no 35 Crabb Street with his parents Herbert & Elizabeth at the time the 1901 census was taken. Ada's diary shows what an influence the Baptist Church in Park Road had on her life. She joined the Girls’ Life Brigade in April 1929, according to her diary for 1931. This was a G.L.B. diary and at the end of this diary is a page to keep a record of badges earned. Ada has ticked Local Knowledge and Physical Drill, both at advanced level. She also lists her friends in the designated space in the diary as J Lamb, Winnifred Kathleen Sail, Kathleen Lilian Webb, all of Crabb Street, Stella Corby of Co-operative Row, Ena Bailey of Trafford Road and Joan Alice Tomlin of Brookfield Road. The first Diary for 1931 must have encouraged Ada to keep a record, as the following year she started to write an account of her day to day life from May 21st 1932 onwards, into an exercise book. The diary and the exercise book have been fully transcribed, together with two other small diaries for 1935 & 1936. In 1937 Ada started to write entries again in the exercise book. After they moved into their bungalow very few entries were made, but a few spasmodic entries continue to the 1990s. Another book with a few entries takes the diary through her illnesses and to her final year, 2007. In the early diaries, several times Ada just wrote “played” – this probably refers to playing the piano rather than games. The sitting room was usually at the front of the house, fronting the street; the living room was at the back next to the kitchen. The "front room" was mostly used only when visitors came. In Rushden we have our own language called “Ruzdin” – leaves out some of the short words like “to” or “in” or “at” (we went somewhere – never to somewhere!), and often drops the “ed” from words. The “bake pudden” is Yorkshire pudding – batter usually baked around meat. The past tense of many verbs is often differently formed in “Ruzdin” – e.g. seen instead of saw, bin instead of been. Ada shortened Wellingborough to Wellingbora’ – that’s how we’d pronounce it! The Hall would mean the Hall Park, Theatre was the Royal Theatre opposite the Queen Victoria Hotel. The reck is the “recreation area”, and bic is Ada’s shortened word for her bicycle. Rushden sits in a valley and the main street is almost the lowest point so wherever you live in the town, except Duck Street, it is down to the High Street – but shortened to “down street”! Editorial comments or additions within the text are in square brackets [] and a few phrases are marked ^ with an explanation at the end of that day's entry. Ada's Poems
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