The Arabian Diaries

Gertrude Bell, an early 20th century British traveller and archaeology enthusiast, died 100 years ago today. Her expertise in the Middle East led her to become a key player in the formation of Iraq after WWI. Diaries she kept through many of her adventures were eventually given to Newcastle University which has made them freely available online. Starting just before the war, she reshaped her diary entries for sending to a British army officer with whom she was in love, and these have been published as The Arabian Diaries.

Gertrude Bell was born in 1869, into a wealthy north-of-England family. Her mother died when she was just three, but her father married again - to Florence, a writer - when she was seven. Gertrude was educated at Queen’s College in London and then at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University, achieving a first in history. Thereafter, she journeyed in Europe and also spent several months in Bucharest and in Tehran, where her uncle was British representative. Her travels continued with two round-the-world trips, one in 1897-1898 and one in 1902-1903.

Bell travelled widely in the Middle East, learning Arabic, meeting many Arab tribal leaders and investigating archaeological sites. She published several travel/archaelogy books, such as Syria: The Desert and the Sown; and she also collaborated with T. E. Lawrence. British Intelligence recruited her during the WWI, and subsequently, with the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, she was appointed Oriental Secretary to the High Commissioner in Baghdad, where she was an important influence in the creation of modern Iraq, and in the naming of Faisal, the recently deposed King of Syria, as first King of Iraq. As Honorary Director of Antiquities in Iraq, she established the Iraq Museum in Baghdad. She died on 12 July 1826 from an overdose of sleeping pills, though whether this was an accident or a deliberate act has never been established. She never married, though had a close relationship during the war with Charles Doughty-Wylie. Further information can be found at Wikipedia or The Guardian.

Most of Bell’s letters and diaries (1877-1919) were given by her half sister to Newcastle University, which hosts a dedicated Gertrude Bell website, including transcribed copies of her diaries.

Some extracts from Bell’s diaries were edited by Rosemary O’Brien and published by Syracuse University Press in 2000 as Gertrude Bell - The Arabian Diaries, 1913-1914 (see Googlebooks). However, although Bell’s diaries are published therein, O’Brien says the centrepiece of her book are, what she calls, the ‘Doughty-Wylie Diaries’. She explains: ‘It was Bell’s custom to record her journeys in small notebooks and to sift through them afterward when drafting private reports, articles, or books. On the Arabian trip, however, she kept parallel records: Two notebooks were eventually filled with daily entries, which, cited as “Diaries,” appear without revisions as appendixes to this volume. A third notebook contains a brilliant reshaping of the daily entry material, written for Charles Hotham Montague (Dick) Doughty-Wylie, a British army officer with whom Gertrude Bell was in love.’

The publisher offers this blurb: ‘The fundamental themes of her life - reckless behaviour; a divided self which combined brilliance of intellect with a passionate nature; a sense of history; and the fatal gift of falling in love with a married man - are all here in remarkable detail.’

The following extracts are taken from The Arabian Diaries: the first three come from the ‘diaries’ contained in the book’s appendices, and the fourth comes from the main part of the book, i.e. what O’Brien calls the ‘Doughty-Wylie Diaries’.

18 December 1913
‘Fine, cold, snow on the hills. We took 2 hrs 20 min. to get off. Left at 8.35 and had an hour’s bad struggle through the muddy zera’ the camels falling down at intervals. When we were S. of the Roman camp our rafiq joined us, Hamad al Lafi of the Ghiyath. The latter seem to be gom with everyone except the Sayyad and the Jumlan who are fellah tribes of Damascus. But, being with us he does not fear to meet the B. Hassan with whom he is gom. We want one of them as a rafiq. He goes with us for a mej. a day. The big chiefs of the Hasenneh are Sa’ad and Muhammad ibn Milhem who receive ma’ash from the Govt. The B. Hassan are a new group; they were once part of the Ghiyath. We got into the volcanic country at 11.30 and marched over broken ground straight onto a tell called el ‘Abd which we reached at 2.30 and found a muddy rain pool where we filled our girbehs. Grass growing between the stones and on the patches of low ground which are free of stones. A man of the Jumlan Sayyad rode out to see who we were; they are camped to the S. of us under the hog’s back which was my first bearing, 102° from ‘Adra. Got into camp at 4 in a low patch with the Saigal tells immediately in front of us. Beautiful sunset glow. We saw one of the Dumairis at his husbandry. He sowed first and ploughed afterwards. The Jumlani Sayyadi was much surprised to see me, but I offered no explanations. Excellent mushrooms-fitr. We saw a good deal of naitu today but there are no shajar tonight.’

9 January 1914
‘The temp fell to 22° in the night and our unwelcome guard had a bad time. Spent the day waiting for the Qaimmaqam of Salt. F. and Abdallah came back (the chowwish had offered to bring them back in the middle of the night) and we all spent the morning making a new tent pole for me, the soldiers aiding. Heaps of gazelle in the hills. Sat in F.’s tent and drew out a section of Kharaneh in afternoon. Cold and horribly windy. Jusef Ch. who has been away all day, came back in a good and obliging temper. It is all rather fancy I must say.’

10 January 1914
Disgusting day, cold, wind and sleet. We got out of camp and rode to the station where I waited for the baggage. Jusef Chowwish and 4 soldiers with us. A little way from the station we saw soldiers - it was the Q. who turned back to Zuwaideh [el-Juweiyida] by another road. When we reached Zuwaideh he had gone on to ‘Amman with the Yuzbashi. Hurried on and got to the hill down to ‘Amman, with little rain. I walked down, got onto Jusef’s horse and cantered up to the Serai, where I found the Q, Halim Beg Abu Sha’r, the Yuzbashi, Ishaq Effendi, and the Mudir, Muhammad Beg. All very friendly. I explained my doings, laid my complaint before them about the Yuzbashi and convinced Halim Beg that I was harmless. He telegraphed the same to Damascus. Two young men, Hanna Bsharra, and Ferid, son of Habib Effendi with whom I lodged at Salt. Hanna presently explained to me that Halim, a Xian, did not want to take any responsibility and I had better telegraph to Devey, which I did. My men pitched tents in pouring rain, below the theatre and before the Odeon.’

17 April 1914
‘It was quite cool today - comparatively; 85 was the highest temperature I registered and we profited by the weather and made a 10 hours march, without fatigue. A dull part of the desert, this is; long shallow steps leading us up into the high Hamad. I think we have left Mesopotamian heat behind and it looks as if it might rain, in which case we shall be flooded out, being in low ground for the sake of our evening lights, and under such insufficient canvas too. Khair inshallah! Today we saw fresh prints of horsemen. ‘Adwan (who is a charming man by the way) opined that they were Shammar of the Jezireh [al-Jazirah], Mesopotamia, looking for ‘Anazeh. with whom they are at feud. I feel no kind of anxiety as to ghazzus while I have ‘Adwan with me. A man from the house of the great shaikh of the Dulaim, a relative of his, and employed by the Government in collecting the cattle tax - it would be impossible to find a surer rafiq. When I part from him the fun may begin, but perhaps not - the Shamiyyeh [Shamiyah] is tolerably safe. Anyways I don’t bother at all; we have been through places so much worse and come out whole and sound. The Government has raised the sheep tax by more than a piastre - I suppose that’s the wax[?l. How much of it do they receive, I wonder? ‘Adwan says truly that the shaikhs eat more than the Government. The long fatigue of travel is upon me and I talk little while we ride. Whenever I talk ‘Adwan greets me with smiles and fair answers. I love these desert people and the sudden heart-whole part they play in your fortunes. And then you leave them and what do they think afterwards? I believe they have a pleasant memory of service rendered and of the quick intimacy of the few days’ journey. One of my rafiqs, far away on the other side of the Nefud, said once over the camp fire “In all the years when we come to this place we shall say: ‘Here we came with her, here she camped.’ It will be a thing to talk of, your ghazzu. We shall be asked for news of it and we shall speak of it and tell how you came.” I expect they will, and it makes me dreadfully anxious that they should tell nothing but good, since they will judge my whole race by me. That recollection very often checks the hasty word when I am tired, and feeling cross, or bored - heavens! how bored, cross and tired some times! Then I try to remember that they will tell how I came.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 12 July 2016.

A librarian’s business

Humfrey Wanley, an English librarian, palaeographer and scholar of Old English, died 300 years ago today. He was employed by manuscript collectors and was the first keeper of the Harleian Library. He left behind a rather unusual diary: although little more than a banal record of a librarian’s day-by-day business in the early 18th century, it is considered an important record for the history of book collecting.

Wanley was born in Coventry in 1672, the youngest son of the clergyman and author Nathaniel Wanley. Apprenticed to a Coventry draper while still in his teens, he developed an extraordinary fascination with medieval manuscripts, teaching himself to read and copy ancient hands in every spare moment. His talent attracted the attention of William Lloyd, whose patronage enabled him to enter Oxford in 1695. Although he never took a degree, his remarkable expertise in palaeography quickly earned him a place as an assistant in the Bodleian Library; there he began work that established him as the foremost Anglo-Saxon manuscript scholar of his generation.

During the following decade Wanley became indispensable to the study and cataloguing of England’s medieval manuscripts. He travelled widely in search of Anglo-Saxon books, compiled the pioneering catalogue of Old English manuscripts published in 1705, and gained the confidence of the great manuscript collector Robert Harley. From 1708 he served as keeper of the Harleian Library, helping to build one of Britain’s greatest manuscript collections, now preserved in the British Library. His meticulous cataloguing and formidable knowledge of early English texts made him one of the founders of modern manuscript scholarship.

Wanley married Anna Bourchier, the widowed Bernard Martin Berenclow, at St Swithin, London Stone, in 1705. Their three children all died in infancy, and Anna herself died in 1722. He later married Ann Lloyd. Frequently troubled by poor health, Wanley nevertheless continued working almost until the end of his life. He died of dropsy in London on 6 July 1726 and was buried in St Marylebone Parish Church. Further biographical information is available from Wikipedia, Kemble College, The British Academy or an article in The Scribe Unbound.

Wanley’s diary covers the final eleven years of his life, from March 1715 until June 1726. Kept primarily as a working journal, it records his daily dealings with booksellers, collectors, scholars and aristocratic patrons, especially the Harleys, alongside visits to auctions, coffee houses and libraries. Rather than offering introspective reflections, it provides an unusually detailed picture of the London book trade, the formation of great manuscript collections and the practical business of scholarship in the early eighteenth century. It has become an indispensable source for historians of books, libraries and antiquarian learning.

Although long known to scholars in manuscript, the diary was not published until 1966, when the Bibliographical Society issued The Diary of Humfrey Wanley, 1715-1726 in two volumes, edited by C. E. Wright and Ruth C. Wright. The full text can be read online at Internet Archive. Here are several extracts - including a part of the introduction - that give a flavour of the full published work.

Introduction: ‘Humfrey Wanley’s Diary or Journal, here printed for the first time in its entirety, was kept by him while Library-Keeper in the service of Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford, and Edward, his son, the 2nd Earl, and runs from 2 March 1714/15 to 23 June 1726, with, however, a considerable gap (except for one entry under 18 July 1716) between 22 August 1715 and 11 January 1719/20, when the Diary was resumed by my Lord Harley’s Order. It records the visits of, or to, booksellers and dealers, and negotiations with them; lists of manuscripts and printed books offered for sale, purchased, or received by gift; conversations with various people about library business; the visits of scholars and others to the Library, either as students there or as sightseers, and so on. It is in fact a record of the day-by-day business of a working librarian and is in no sense, therefore, a diary such as Pepys’s or Evelyn’s: apart from occasional references to his health, Wanley’s allusions to personal affairs are few, for instance, a reference to the sudden death of his wife (on 3 January 1721/22) - ‘my late grievous Calamity’ under the entry 15 January 1721/22 - and to the death of his landlady (under 10 November 1724), but a simple direct style, happy choice of descriptive word and phrase, skill in recounting an incident (such as the oft-quoted Warburton-Genoa Arms ‘frolick’ under 13 July 1720), a sarcastic, caustic tongue and occasional use of ‘asides’ (as when he says that Mr. Hugh Thomas ‘came to Study, as he think’s’ combined with the interest of the subject matter (at any rate to all those whose ways lie in the paths of librarianship) make it absorbing reading. The entry under 11 January 1719/20 suggests that when the Diary was begun in 1715 it was done so by Edward Harley’s instructions and that it was, in a certain sense, intended to be an official record of his work as custodian of the Library. It is preserved in two quarto-size volumes in the Lansdowne Collection.’

10 June 1715

‘My noble Lord Oxford was pleased to bring in an Original Letter of the Elector Palatin to Qu. Anne: and an Extract from a letter of the late Emperor of Morocco to her Majestie, in Arabic; with an English Version.’

14 June 1715

‘My Noble Lord Oxford was pleased to send in an Original Letter of Louise Princess of Holstein to Queen Anne.’

15 June 1715

‘My Noble Lord Oxford was pleased to send in an Original [letter] of Victor Amedeo the present King of Sicily, to himself.’

4 May 1720.

‘I went to Stafford-house, upon information that there are two very fine MSS which will be sold at the Sale of the late Earl of Stafford’s things, which Commence’s to morrow. I found the one to be a sort of Breviary, the other to be a kind of Diurnal, both very finely Illuminated.

A Letter was Sent to Mr Tanner, desiring him to attend my Lord this day by two of the clock. (in Order to receive my Lord’s Commissions for Buying at the Sale abovementioned).

Mr Sanderson sent me a Letter, with the Price he putt’s upon his Things; which price I think too dear, because very many of them His Lordship doth not want, or intend’s to buy: many other’s he hath already; and the remainder not considerable enough to induce him to part with so much as Mr Sanderson ask’s.

I went to Mr Warner the Goldsmith, desiring him to execute my Lords Commission for buying the MSS. abovementioned, and some other things at Stafford-house, which he readily undertook. I also bought of him the old Gyllyngham-Silver-Spoon for my Lord.’

28 June 1721

A Letter sent to Mr Noel, about a time when he is to wait upon my Lord.

Mr Charles Davis brought a MS. mostly Hebrew, written by a Christian, and partly Latin; being upon the Subject of Conjuration. I rejected it now; as I remember I did before about 7 or 8 years ago.

Mr Bogdani came, & took away the old Leaves he left with me.

Mr Cart came, enquiring about Mr Morley & A Bp. Sancrofts Papers.

Mr Bacon came, & told me that he had lately seen in a Booksellers Hands, one part of a Septi-partite Indenture between King Henry VII, and others, dated 16 July, anno regni 19, which is to be sold. But that the Seal & Bosses are taken off. I desired him to buy it for my Lord as cheap as he can; & he promised to do so.’

Trapped in a comical maze

‘Ten minutes after seeing the neurologist, I can’t get out of the car park. At Glasgow Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, I drive round and around a little multi-storey block for half an hour, unable to discern an exit. [. . .] So, I begin the year of dread and hope, trapped in a comical maze, in a comical car with a quizzical look on my face.’ This is from the diary - recently published in paperback - kept by Justin Currie, a Scottish singer and songwriter best known as a founding member of the rock band Del Amitri.

Currie was born in Glasgow in 1964. His father, John Currie, was an acclaimed choral conductor who served as chorusmaster of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra Chorus before later becoming music director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale. Music formed part of Currie’s upbringing, although he was drawn more towards songwriting. He formed his first band while at school in Glasgow. 

In the early 1980s, he famously placed a handwritten notice in a Glasgow music shop seeking musicians, an advertisement that led to the formation of Del Amitri, with Currie the band’s bassist, lead singer and principal songwriter. Success came gradually, but albums including Waking Hours, Change Everything and Twisted produced a string of hit singles, among them Nothing Ever Happens, Always the Last to Know and Roll to Me, while Del Amitri ultimately sold more than six million records worldwide.

Alongside his work with Del Amitri, Currie developed a successful solo career, releasing four studio albums between 2007 and 2017. His succes is said to be based on the exceptional quality of his songwriting, admired for its emotional honesty, dry humour and literary sophistication. His lyrics often examine ageing, relationships, disappointment and resilience - all with a rare combination of self-deprecation and poetic precision. 

Following a lengthy hiatus, Del Amitri returned with Fatal Mistakes in 2021, the groups highest-charting record for three decades, before resuming extensive touring in Britain, Europe and North America. In 2022, Currie was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease - after noticing an increasingly obvious tremor in his right hand. Rather than retreating from public life, he continued to perform while adapting to the challenges of the condition. 

However, he also started to keep a diary. The resulting text was first published in hardback by New Modern in August 2025 as The Tremolo Diaries: Life on the Road and Other Diseases.The book, the publisher says, ‘is a beautiful and unique meditation on illness and aging. It is a twilight years reflection on band life in the 21st Century. It’s a travelogue around the world’s art galleries, parks, bars and sites of natural beauty. And most importantly, it is about love and friendship, adversity and courage, life and loss.’

The work has since been released as a paperback which can be previewed at Googlebooks; reviews can be read here and here. The diary itself falls into two sections structured around an arduous American support tour in 2023 and a more rewarding European tour in 2024. The entries are mostly dated ‘Day 1’, ‘Day 2’, ‘Day 3’ and so on although the underlying chronology can usually be reconstructed from the tour itinerary. 

18 January 2022

‘Ten minutes after seeing the neurologist, I can’t get out of the car park. At Glasgow Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, I drive round and around a little multi-storey block for half an hour, unable to discern an exit.

The neurologist, a frank young man whose kind manner was compromised by his surgical mask, had just asked me an odd question. ‘Why are you here?’

It had occurred to me then that he was terrified of dropping the P-bomb.

‘Well, my GP and I strongly suspect Parkinson’s,’ I reply. I can see the mans face, or the sliver of his face that remains uncovered, visibly relax.

‘I can do a brain scan today,’ he says, ‘but we won’t find anything. However, in that event, I will not tell you that you don’t have Parkinson’s. Or I can see you in a year.’

I opt for the year of half-knowing, half-hoping.

As I leave his tidy little room, I say, ‘So, you’re saying I have Parkinson’s, but you can’t confirm the diagnosis for a year. How do you know?’

‘Relax your arms by your side,’ he says, and my right hand gently trembles at my hip, as if it’s remembering something tricky.

‘Now lift your hands to shoulder height.’

The tremor stops.

‘That’s how?’

So, I begin the year of dread and hope, trapped in a comical maze, in a comical car with a quizzical look on my face. And twelve months later, I sail out of the same place secure in the knowledge I’m ill, and emboldened by the pleasant surprise that they have pills for this sort of thing.

I decide I’m going to keep working, keep touring, keep playing, despite the uneasy feeling that another man is growing inside me, slowly seizing the means of control. It’s as if your own shadow has leapt from the ground and buried itself within you. And this shadow has malevolent intent. He may share my shape, but now we’re combined, it’s a fight to find out who has the most valid claim.’

2 June 2023

‘Day 1. It’s 10 a.m. and we’re back in Cincinnati, parked inside the venue compound. I load my backpack and go backstage for a shower, drying myself with paper towels from a dispenser by the sink. I stroll out offsite and pay ten bucks to access an arts and crafts fair set up on the venue’s periphery. It’s a sea of dreadful tat: leather goods, tie-dyed rags and truly repugnant artwork. It’s heaving with bovine white flesh, ambling about in a retail daze. I sit under an oak and gaze at the river, half-boiled in my denim. One good thing: tonight’s shed is covered. But the heat is still fierce, its prison walls all around you, inches from your skin.

A harmony group start up from an open-sided enclosure, warbling a countrified Have You Ever Seen the Rain? Not today, chaps, no. Over my shoulder, I spot a lurid portrait of Elton John rendered in violent puce and electric blue. Jimi Hendrix and Willie Nelson hang beside him, equally disfigured. The band treble and birds sing. The man sharing my picnic bench is speaking in the broad twang of the South and I recall someone telling me that Cincinnati - situated in Ohio but on the Kentucky border - has a dual personality: half Yankee, half Confederate. There are ants and red spider mites crawling through my leg hair and I go down to the riverbank where two large geese guard three fluffy yellow chicks. A red speedboat bumps past and the sun drills down as the boat’s wake laps at the rocks with surprising violence. Seven waves, then silence. The geese take to the water honking a message I cannot fathom. Black spiders judder about at my feet as cotton-tufted seeds stream by on the breeze looking for somewhere to take root. I check out the band - mandolin, guitar and bass fiddle with a distinctly White Christian vibe - but shade is in short supply, so I go looking for the first food of the day. My morning pill has taken hold, so I’m alive for a few hours, the lowering proximity of the Ghastly Affliction held temporarily at bay. Make hay, make hay.

As I wend my way back to Bus World, I search for a hat. I need something straw with a wide brim. All I see are trinkets and future landfill disguised as objets d’art. I weave through baseball-hatted men slurping beer from plastic beakers, their wives in dime-store shorts and T’s, ponytails threaded through white sun visors. It's an army of consumption. Bored and dazed, killing time.’