Reading deeper into Virginia Woolf's vicious diary entry
Woolf's experiences of medical professionals who forced her to gain weight and forbade reading and writing (which made her life meaningful), and of private asylums, left her in no doubt of this possibility, which she illustrates so brilliantly in Mrs Dalloway.
The diary entry is surely a defence mechanism and projection – caricaturing others' features to displace her personal fears.Maggie HummVice-chair, Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain
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Georgina Gracen Salders-Hill became a sheep farmer almost by accident. She was training to be a lawyer, and hoped to be a criminal barrister. But while studying, she took a £7.05-an-hour job working on a dairy farm between 5am to 9am, when the cows are milked. She took it simply to earn money for four hours' work before she went to lectures at the University of Worcester, as no other job allowed her to start so early. But, to her surprise, she found that she loved it. So much so, she decided to no longer pursue a career in law, and instead turned her hand to farm work. After graduating, Salders-Hill went to work for the farm full time – milking, calving, driving tractors and foot trimming. Now, she has one wish in life: to own her own herd of 300 sheep. It does mean that she is sacrificing a potentially lucrative career for one that is very much not. She says she will be lucky to earn £30,000 a year, compared to the £60,000-plus she thinks she would have made going into law. 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