As secretary to his father in Europe, he became an accomplished linguist and assiduous diarist.

WHITEHOUSE: John Quincy Adams

In 1942, the diarist Anne Frank and her family took refuge from the Nazis in Amsterdam.

CNN: Monday,

Diarist Nigel Dempster, campaigning journalist Paul Foot and cartoonist Carl Giles are among those honoured.

BBC: NEWS | UK | 'Top 40' UK journalists honoured

Keen diarist Ken Owen from Llanfechell has kept a diary for 53 years.

BBC: Anglesey diaries presented to island archive

He may have been a cad, a bounder and a terrible snob, but that is the essential armoury of a diarist.

ECONOMIST: Non-fiction

Samuel Pepys, the diarist who told the story of the Great Fire of London set up one of the first pension schemes.

BBC: NEWS | Programmes | Working Lunch | Pensions: Past, present and future

Another diarist, Tilly Rice, packed off to North Cornwall with her three children, leaving her husband, a government worker, behind in London.

FORBES: Magazine Article

But soon the diarist moves into the darker corners of his personality.

NEWYORKER: Imp of the Perverse

Disappointed, the diarist and his friends started to ride back to town.

NPR: Living History At Lincoln's Summer Retreat

Yet overstatement, like inconsistency, is a diarist's privilege.

ECONOMIST: Russia

And, ten years after the death of Alan Clark, Ion Trewin, who edited his diaries, and political commentator Anthony Howard, discussed how much of Clark the politician survives, as well as the diarist .

BBC: Jim and Justin's review