A cool story from the Manchester Evening News:

 

Angela Prince, 74, found the dust-covered notebooks while clearing the attic of her aunt and uncle’s attic in Partington.

They appear to be written by children of the Hall family, who ran the medical herbalists Hall’s Hygiene in Salford until the 1970s.

Retired secretary Angela, who lives in Withington, stumbled across the diaries as she cleared out the house of her late relatives.

She has now turned sleuth to find how the diaries – which give an emotional insight into the privations of war – relate to her family. One entry on 20 June, 1940 reads: “First real raid alarm at 3.15 am. All awake in good time and downstairs. Day in bed, horrid and cold. ”
The writer also documents the progress of the war both in England and abroad, noting how many losses were suffered by the army on each side and following the situation in Africa.
On 7 November 1943, the entry reads: “Hitler’s speech in Munich. More boasting even though news at its worst – says nothing could beat them.”
But they also give an insight into the lighter side of wartime life, detailing a visit to the cinema, where actors Shirley Temple and Nigel Bruce were the stars….

This story ran back in November 2013. I wonder if she found the owners! I love the diaries themselves– a “scribbling diary” in that format sounds like a great idea. I wish I could see the pages inside…  It’s interesting that they were made by Boots, still an active drugstore chain in the UK today, with that same logo. I did a little googling and discovered that these were made for decades, and must have been the standard diary many people bought every year and used faithfully. Here’s a few photos from an eBay listing for a 1960s version:

Looks like more extensive “useful info” pages than most diaries… and I love the columns along the page edges so you can use it as a ledger to record spending too!

And lo and behold, they are still making a version of this, though it looks quite different and it sounds like they have introduced some innovations that people aren’t happy about: Boots Scribbling Diary 2014. Sounds like it’s time for them to make a nice nostalgic facsimile of the original for modern users– I bet it would sell like crazy!
Read more at Help grandmother from Withington in Manchester find the owner of Second World War diaries found in her attic – Manchester Evening News.