THE DIARIES OF PAUL K LYONS - 1987

By the start of the year, as planned, Barbara was pregnant with our child, and I was aiming to return to London in March. It was a full and rich time for me, the last three months in Brazil (Diary 34), with plenty of work, tourist trips, and carnival. I organised my departure carefully, passing on clients to friends, selling some stuff (like the motorbike), and shipping back crates of other stuff, including Brazilian crafts (many of which still decorate my house 30 odd years later).

My immediate priority in London was to find work, so that I could support Barbara and child, but I soon got caught up in buying a small weekend cottage, in Aldeburgh, Suffolk (Diary 35). Since Barbara and I had no plans to live together (our homes were just a mile apart), I had dreamed up the idea of having such a cottage so we could be a family at weekends. Having found a suitable property, getting a job became even more important. Fortunately, my freelance work in Brazil for FT newsletters had led to a good relationship with the editors there, and I was offered, first, some holiday cover, and then a contract to edit a newsletter called ‘European Energy Report’.

Adam - the joy and light of Barbara’s life and my own - was born in August. On the day of his birth, I started a new journal (Diary 36). It was a fancy book, larger than my usual journals, with a padded and gold-patterned cover, and gold-edging to the unlined and glossy white paper inside. It had been given me many years earlier, and I’d never found a use for it. Now, I had. Every entry in the book, for the next nine months, was written, stylistically, as a letter to Adam, starting, ‘Dear Adam’. I have much to say about our newborn child; otherwise the Aldeburgh house (we tried to go once a fortnight) and the new job take up most of my diary time. (Diaries 34, 35, 36)

Paul K. Lyons (April 2015)