30th October, 1953

J and I had another row in the cottage...

Roberta Hewitt

Socialist, activist and wife of John Hewitt

J and I had another row in the cottage – I don’t know what about. Oh yes, I do – I went and slept alone in the small bed after throwing a bottle of methylated spirits at the far wall.

I got up early in the morning and swept it up and lit the fire, made myself tea and went back to bed, it was raining – J wrote a poem about it – all very bad. I felt I could go insane and my nerves were in a shocking state all summer and until the last two weeks, and here we are in October.

All this summer I really felt ill. I had what seemed to me Colitis – hated food but was hungry – pains and aches everywhere and lately my two ankles go a cold numb from the ankles to the bottom of the ball of my legs, like two icy hands grasping my ankles. We have not been happy. It all rests with me.

I jog on and on and hate everything, feel no warmth within me, make the beds and cook and wash and go to nursery school and talk about school and talk about hospitals and talk about politics and listen to poetry and then someday I explode and hate everything actively and acutely and shout at J and want someone to talk to me about me and then I collapse and feel small and bitchy and useless, and I again sweep up the bits of my anger and put them in a dark box […]

I must write in this – why must I under God? Maybe this old journal is a safety valve.