Wednesday May 9, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds, &c

Still dull outside. Who cares? Our alarm clock is on the blink and refuses to sound off. Samuel laid patiently peeping through his bars and his slumbering Mama refused to follow my example of climbing out in the chill of the bedroom. The brewery phoned to say the dray isn't coming until tomorrow. This is no trouble.

Samuel almost sat unaided. He wobbled for a few seconds and then keeled over. Just after 2 we escaped to Bradford where Ally left me at Club Street to go for her hair doing ~ a perm. She was back at 5 looking like she did two years ago. A crinkly fringe, &c. At Club St until 7-ish when we returned to the pub where we went unmolestered by the bar staff. We spent a few hours upstairs together. TV abysmal.

To bed with Noel Coward's journal. He was certainly well in with the Queen Mother. She has a leaning, they say, for homosexual company, a comment which certainly upset her private secretary Sir Martin Gilliat. I can see his point. Ally, all curls, on the pillow next to me.

-=-

Tuesday May 8, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Overcast. We intended turning over a new leaf today by getting up at 7am and running an organised machine, only to sleep through the alarm clock and wake at 8:05. We had the usual dash around. Ally was grumpy and grumbling about everything and I stood at the kitchen window watching her muttering to herself and into the Hunslet horizon.

Samuel wants to crawl. Lay him on a rug and he'll kick furiously, but he has yet to build up enough energy to move. He has the right idea though. Ally has given him baby rice and mixed fruit slop which he eats splendidly. He is clad in woollies from Bessie and a chunky polo necked sweater resembling a lifeboat man or a whaler and not a 17 week old baby.

A good day for luncheons. We took the vast sum of £14 on food. 

Opening the flood barrier.

News: Ralph Bonner Pink MP, is no more. Another by-election. The Daily Telegraph reveals that the King of Tunisia has meningitis and now cannot marry his fiancée in Hampshire on Saturday. Prince Edouard-Xavier de Lobkowicz, 23, a scion of the royal house of Bourbon-Parma, has been found murdered in Paris. They say Gadaffi has shot some of the London siege murderers for 'bungling the job'. I do hope so. I cannot decide who I loathe the most ~ A. Scargill or Colonel Gadaffi. At least Gadaffi lives in Tripoli. Barnsley is a little closer. The Sovereign declared open the Thames Flood Barrier. Ken Livingstone was bowing and grovelling like the rest of them. Mondale and Hart are continuing to fight it out in the US of A. Ron and Nancy are visiting Ron's roots in Eire in June after the D-Day landing 40th anniversary shindig at Dunkirk. The Queen is going to Normandy on HMY Britannia. Olympic rumpus: Russia isn't goint to send a team to Los Angeles. It's a retaliatory step because Jimmy Carter stopped a US team from visiting Moscow in '80. The Olympic Games should be ended once and for all. More trouble than it's worth and invariably they end in blood and tears. It was the quietest night ever. Bed at 11:30.

Monday May 7, 1984

 Bank Holiday in UK

Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Bitterly cold. A bank holiday instituted some years ago by a Labour government. May Day indeed. It all shreiks of Joseph Stalin to me. 

Samuel woke at 5:30 wailing in his cot. Ally and I squabbled about who loves him the most and who should pick him up. Needless to say, I do. At 7:30 I went downstairs and came up for breakfast an hour later. Frank and Bessie had slept heavily and B thinks a cold is about to erupt. They were at Susan Hellier's wedding on Saturday and endured a meagre reception at the Potters Heron. Sausage rolls, &c. The aristo neighbour on Chilland Lane is now identified as Robert (Robin) Napier, heir to a baronetcy. Frank says he's a drip.

See in the Daily Telegraph that Ronald Reagan is related to all the crown heads of Europe. They always seem to link US presidents to the old Irish kings ~ you know, Brian Boru, and the likes. Our Sovereign lady is is one of George Washington's nearest living relatives. Beat that.

A flat lunch. ______. A miserable crowd all wrapped up like sherpas. As you know our boiler is defunct. Poor Samuel will be blue. F & B left at 4:30 or so. Good old Frank did his usual chores, fixed the vacuum cleaner and hung pictures, &c. Bessie bought Samuel a pelican and enough knitting to clothe Samuel until he's 5. A quiet Bank Holiday extension until 11:30pm. So many of our customers are OAPs who go home to bed at 9:30.

-=-

Sunday May 6, 1984

 2nd Sunday after Easter

Moorhouse Inn, Leeds 11

Dismal. The little warm spell has passed by.That's summer over and done with. Down to the furthermost depths of my cellar to swill, swab and shuffle. Who knows when LG will call upon us again.

Ally excited about seeing her Mum and Dad. They got here for 2:30 bearing gifts of plenty for Samuel, who was clad in his Prince William-style romper suit. We all think Samuel is the double of Frank but they don't see it, and Bessie says he looks more like her cousin Evelyn Braithwaite, who ever that might be. Both look fatter and they blame the surfeit of banquets. 

We ate an enormous luncheon ~ roast beef &c. Collapsed afterwards. I opened up at 8 (?) and then Maureen and Jane appeared and I floated off back to join the others.Samuel, aware of the visitors, refused to go to bed and grumbled furiously about this intrusion into our peaceful domesticity. At 10o'clock I went down to find the place packed to the doors and both bar staff in the cellar trying to connect a barrel of Sovereign keg. It was frantic. When all had gone we had cheese toasties and showed F & B around the downstairs. Felt whacked.

-=-

Saturday May 5, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Poor Diana Dors has run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. Aged 52, she has suffered from cancer. We lazed around this morning. Ally sat amid the debris of breakfast reading chunks from 'The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole', newly arrived from our Book Club.

Club Street.

Maureen's vacuum cleaner has exploded spewing red hot flowing rubber over the lounge carpet. Like Mount St Helena. Maureen only wants to do one 'early doors' instead of the two offered. Her husband Sam seems to be something of a case. He is an out of work country and western singer with an abnormal appetite for pork pies and mushy peas. We decided, quite suddenly, to escape to Club Street for the afternoon. So, off we went down the Queen's highway, Samuel in the back of the car kicking his legs and blinking in the sunlight. The little house looked well. Nutty Norman, scantily clad, was smoking in his garden. We hid from him. Mrs O'Brien came to inspect Samuel in his pram and gossip about the new neighbour across the road. Mrs Greenwood's house is still for sale. At 4 we went to the market and bought a piece of beef. We spotted Sister Laidler, who delivered Samuel, buying cucumbers. She didn't see us. Back for 6:30. No drama, tragedy, or touching human sob stories. Margaret worked.Her husband Dougie came in.

-=-

Friday May 4, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

At lunchtime Ally took Samuel to the clinic and had him weighed. He is 12lb 10oz. Ally says the clinic is full of screaming, hysterical babies and Samuel just sits amidst them calm and collected with a curious look on his face. Samuel had a spoonful of rice ____. He chewed it for a bit and took the lot. And so the weaning process has begun.

June, Joe Cullen's tart, was in the back bar swilling vodka as if Mr Chernenko has launched his attack on the west and we only have eighteen minutes to oblivion. She will have to go in the path of her barred out august paramour. Tonight, Ally spotted them groping together in a car in our carpark, but they made no attempt to enter the premises. I told Maureen we will have to scrap her 11-12 daily shift and that I will do it. Instead I asked her to 'open up' at 5:50 as from next week, for two days. This will work better for us because early evenings can be tiresome. This evening Ally stayed upstairs. Frank McCarron came in and announced that Diana Dors is fighting for her life. Poor thing. An up an coming rock group, called The Cult, who inhabit the tap room, asked Jane to give them a lift home, presumably for a gang bang. She declined. Bed at 12 after a cheese toastie.

-=-

Thursday May 3, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds 11

Samuel is clad in his new gear. What a beauty. He had a spoon of Delrosa syrup.

Busy in the bars. Another riotous 'Giro Day'. More beer is spilled on the floor (by the customers) than consumed. The tap room looks like Lake Windermere. Ally went upstairs in a state of collapse and I battled on with Margaret and Karen. I ejected a pissed young pool payer who was infuriating everyone. For a while I thought a brawl might ensue.

The dear PM has been at the helm for 5 years today, and is said to be planning a third term from 1987/88. I think she could do it. I'd like to see her surpass Walpole. 

Andrew: out of favour?

Fuss and nonsense on breakfast TV about the Prince of Wales kissing Prince Edward when they met in Cambridge. If brothers want to kiss then why not? Kevin Keegan does it on the football pitch, so why can't yer crowned heads? Poor Prince Andrew has taken a knock. Recently in Los Angeles he sprayed photographers with paint, he says accidentally, and then back  at home for Easter he wasn't at Windsor for the church service and the gutter press claimed this is because he is out of favour with Her Majesty. In fact the prince was up in Scotland at Floors Castle standing as godfather to Lord Edward Innes-Ker, son of the Duke of Roxburghe. Such a lot of twaddle is printed about our long suffering royal house. The annoying thing is that the majority of the British public believe what they read in the newspapers.

--=-

Wednesday May 2, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds 11

Mum.

To try and keep a journal, run and pub and a baby is asking the impossible. Gone is that old wit and sparkle because I have no time to think or be creative. Believe me, I am still full of humour and fun. It just doesn't come out onto these pages much. Dad and I went down early to clean the beer lines but the mild XXXX exploded and I had to phone cellar services at the brewery.The guy didn't appear until 2:30 and he casually strolled in whistling a Hoagy Carmichael number. Then the Piries arrived to talk about a court case. I ignored them and went upstairs to have lunch with the others. Mum had made beefburgers. Previously they's been out with Samuel for a walk up Dewsbury Road and had stood eyeing a microwave oven in Des Butler's window. Over lunch Mum says Billy Wright phoned her on Easter Sunday to say he would be at their pearl wedding celebrations on June 19. Have I said that they are all coming here to celebrate, about 30 of them? Should prove devastating. I must phone Dave G to give him Samuel's christening details. At 3 Mum kindly offered to babysit and Ally and I went into town to spend £20 on baby clothes at Schofield's. The lad has a fat money box. We have bought him old fashioned baby wear ~ the style made popular by Prince William of Wales. You know the sort I mean. The stuff with an elasticated embroidered front and puff sleeves. Mum and Dad went off to see Sue at 5 o'clock. We are hoping to get to Horton near Ally's birthday. I worked tonight with Karen. Not too hectic.

-=-

Tuesday May 1, 1984

 New Moon

Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Papa.

Mum and Dad rolled in at 11:30 looking tanned and happy. Dad has long grey curls and could be mistaken for Lord Lichfield any day. They brought an Easter egg for Samuel who is calm and happy today. They see a great change in him and remark on his strong resemblance to Frank D. I have a sickly headache, the kind I suffered from in my schooldays, and have taken a couple of ultra-relief pills swilled down with Mandarine Napoleon brandy. We sat for a couple of hours playing with Samuel. Poor Papa becomes very emotional looking at babies. He is a sensitive man. His eyes go damp when watching films like 'Brief Encounter' and that sort of thing. We looked at an old group photo including Uncle Albert taken in 1907. Great Uncle Oliver is on the extreme right. We dined on brisket, cauliflower cheese, and later Ally and I walked across to the Blooming Rose and had a quick drink in a half hearted way but returned to the Moorhouse for 10pm and sat with Mum and Dad. It was a quiet night in the pub. The loss of Joe Cullen has left a void which cannot be filled. We retired at 11:30 and ate chunks of cream cake. I had a cherry brandy as a nightcap. And so to bed.

-=-

Monday April 30, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn

Another warm one. At 2 in walked (Peter) Lazenby and Tony Harney (they had seen Michael Brown's poster on the back wall at the YP). Neither of them change at all. We sat at the bar in the tap room recalling the times we grovelled around Blackpool. I was always something of a celebrity of those debauched 'father's day' trips. Poor Pete asked if I knew Dave, his brother, was dead, and I muttered my sympathies. Six months on Pete still looks very moved by Dave's passing. They left at 3 promising a return visit. 

-=-

Sunday April 29, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Low Sunday

Cooler today. Cousin Jill is 22. 

We held a staff meeting at 11. A congenial affair with coffee and biscuits.Samuel attended and watched the proceedings from his mother's arms. We had to give everyone the hard word about the stock problem, and scrapped the staff 10 minute break at closing and ironed out one or two minor irritations. I'm sure they all thought it was a waste of time, but Ally and I felt as though something useful had come out of it.

Tony & Geoff.

Auntie Mabel, Marlene, F, Mark & Debbie came at 1 and sat outside with Ally and Samuel. Mabel pushed Samuel in his pram through the tulips of Hunslet Moor and he wailed in his high pitched voice throughout whenever she glanced at him. His pet lip came up and tears welled in his eyes at the very sight of her. Most odd, because she is such a sweet, old thing. At 2:30 we all went in to the tap room where Frank and the kids played pool. They stayed until almost 5 o'clock.

Tonight comes Jill, Tim, Hilda, Tony, Geoff Elmer and his spouse, Margaret. They stood until after 12.

-=-