My Secret Diary Read Online Free PDF Page A

which
looked nice.
    My writing was certainly as limp as a lettuce in
those days. Nice!
    So I liked my green dress, but my favourite outfit
was 'a cotton skirt patterned with violets and nice
and full'. It's about the only one of those long-ago
garments I wouldn't mind wearing now on a
summer day.
    Biddy was generous to me, buying me clothes
out of her small wage packet.
    Saturday 4 June
    In the afternoon Mummy and I went to Richmond
and after a long hunt we bought me a pair
of cream flatties, very soft and comfortable.
Then, back in Kingston, we went into C & A's and
found a dress in the children's department
that we both liked very much. The only trouble
with it was that it had a button missing at the
waist. Mummy made a fuss about it, but they
didn't have another dress in stock or another
button, so we bought it minus the button as we
liked it very much indeed. It is a lovely powder
blue colour with a straight skirt and Mummy
has transferred the bottom button to the waist so
that it doesn't notice so much.
    I sound like little Goody-Two-Shoes, trotting
round with Mummy, being ever so grateful for my
girly frock. It's reassuring to see that I revert to
surly teenager the very next day.
    Sunday 5 June
    I AM A PIG . I was rude and irritable today and I
just didn't care, and I spoilt Mummy's day at the
coast. (Daddy wasn't very well-behaved either
though!) I won't write any more about a very
unfortunate day.
    I wish I had. It would have been a lot more
interesting than painstaking accounts of buttons
missing on powder-blue dresses!

4
Chris
    Sunday 3 January
    Chris and Carol are my best friends, and there is
also Sue who lives next door, and Cherry down the
road. They all go to Coombe, my school.
    I met my very special friend, Chris, on my first
day at Coombe County Secondary School for Girls.
I'd had another Christine as my special friend when
I was at primary school but we'd sadly lost touch
when we both left Latchmere. I think she moved
away after her mum died.
    I'd never set eyes on my new friend Chris
before that first day at secondary school. I
didn't know anyone at all. It's always a bit scary
going to a brand-new school. Coombe was in New
Malden, two or three miles from our flats in
Kingston. I hadn't made it through my eleven plus
to Tiffin Girls' School, but I'd been given a 'second
chance' and managed to pass this time. I could
now go to a new comprehensive school instead of
a secondary modern.
    Coombe was one of the first comprehensives,
though it was divided firmly into two teaching
streams – grammar and secondary modern. In an
effort to make us girls mix in together, we were
in forms for non-academic lessons like singing
and PE, and in groups graded from one all
the way to nine for lessons like maths and
English. This system didn't make allowances for
girls like me. I'd been put in group one, where I
held my own in English and most of the arts
subjects – but I definitely belonged in group
nine for maths! Still, compiling that timetable
must have been nightmare enough without
trying to accommodate weird girls like me – very
good in some subjects and an utter dunce
in others.
    I couldn't even get my head around the densely
printed timetable, and the entire geography of the
school was confusing. We weren't shown around
beforehand or even given a map when we arrived
the first day. We were somehow expected to sense our way around.
    I managed to fetch up in the right form room,
1A. We stood around shyly, eyeing each other up
and down. We were a totally mixed bunch. A few
of the girls were very posh, from arty left-wing
families who were determined to give their
daughters a state education. Some of the girls were
very tough, from families who didn't give their
daughters' education a second thought. Most of us
were somewhere in the middle, ordinary suburban
girls fidgeting anxiously in our stiff new uniforms,
wondering if we'd ever make friends.
    'Good morning, Form One A! I'm Miss Crowford,
your form