Eleven diaries beginning in Cape Town, 1 January 1932, which Lawson was travelling through on route to take up his post, and continuing with occasional gaps up to 1943. The writing is mainly manuscript, but there are some inserted typescript entries. Although Lawson's will bequeathed 'the diaries written by me while a member of the Colonial Civil Service in Nyasaland from 1932 to 1944', there are no volumes for 1941 or 1944.