In January 2013 two women met in the upstairs room of a small cafe in Brighton, to discuss a subject dear to both their hearts; diary - keeping. Given their forty years' age difference, their backgrounds, and their lifestyles, Helena Whitbread and Natasha Holme had very little else in common. Their approach to the form differed in that Helena is a reader and editor of diaries while Natasha is a diarist herself. The focus of their meeting was on two specific diaries which, although separated by almost two hundred years, nevertheless had a common bond: both were written in an esoteric code in order to conceal the same secret - that of their lesbian sexuality. Of the two diaries under discussion, the historical one was written by Anne Lister (1791 - 1840) who has become known as the first modern lesbian, and the second is the work of Natasha Holme herself.