Cecil Beaton's Diaries - 1922 - 1939: The Wandering Years: Sir Cecil BeatonSir Cecil Beaton (1904 1980): English fashion, portrait and war photographer; painter; diarist and Academy Awardwinning stage and costume designer. In short, a cultural icon. For almost as long as he could write, Cecil Beaton kept his diaries. They accumulated year after year, and from a formidable pile of notebooks he extracted enough to fill six volumes. Like any young man, he had his set backs; growing up in a much changed England post World War I;