She looks rather coarse and lumpish … (Rosemary Sutcliff Diary, 17/6/88)

Now today I have a dilemma as I transcribe Rosemary Sutcliff‘s diary for June 17th Friday. For she names a visitor who “has lost quite a lot of their looks since I last saw them, and looks rather coarse and lumpish”. This is how I have chosen to reconcile capturing Rosemary’s  closely observed, evocative comments about people, with the need to protect feelings and anonymity (although I doubt that the looks-losing person in question is reading this or will do so). Since Rosemary was not writing these diaries for publication, did not publish anything from them in her lifetime, and would not have wanted to offend anyone in theirs, this is how I have decided to do it!