20100610

Monday October 13, 1975

Quite busy at work today because Kathleen isn't back until tomorrow and Carol J is away with Brian from the engraving department having a dirty weekend in Blackpool.______.

Her Majesty the Queen returned to London from Balmoral today, and event which coincided with the first sitting of Parliament since the summer recess. John Stonehouse went to the Commons to protest his innocence and was generally ignored by his fellow MPs. So all in all the only person to acknowledge him since his return from Australia is Mary Wilson, wife of beloved Uncle Harold. The old girl must be something of an embarrassment to the Prime Minister at times.

After work I go straight down to Carole's where I find her looking greatly improved. She keeps apologising for something she says she did on Saturday afternoon, but I refuse to accept it because as far as I am concerned she is totally blameless of any misdemeanor. Believe it or not, we sat about on her bed playing Monopoly! It isn't a game I really enjoy, but the invalid seemed to take pleasure in it. Mrs P tried to make me have some tea with them but I flatly refused. I never feel hungry until later on.

Carole is a love. She says she is coming out with me on Wednesday evening because I go south on Thursday. I must bring her a present back from Windsor.

Home at 8.15 and have eggs and bacon. After devouring this I sit about for an hour and go to bed at about 10pm.

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Sunday October 12, 1975

20th after Trinity. Don't go to Carole's today. She said quite categorically that I needn't bother going every day, so I put her resolution into effect by staying at home. I do wish she would hurry up and recover. Illness is something I cannot cope with in others. For one thing, I don't make an ideal conversationalist when confronted by a pale, demure invalid.

I'm in no mood to continue writing today and so I'll be saying Goodbye.

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Saturday October 11, 1975

At 3pm I go to 14, Oakridge Avenue yet again. I find a note pinned on the door from Carole asking me to go straight in because all the family have gone out, and she cannot be bothered to get out of bed. Upstairs I find John and Maria. They are helping her to polish off my box of chocolates. We sit on the bed and watch a cronic film on BBC2. Before I know what's happening I've fallen into a semi coma, and am roused something like an hour later by the noise of Mrs P coming in from shopping. Carole and I have tea together in her bedroom and I stay with her until about 7.30. The family are very nice really, but I always think Carole is far too hard on them - especially her little brother, Paul, who at 11 is only like other lads his age. She ought to treat kids more like equals. After all, she's only 17 herself. However, I do adore her.

To the Hare with John after seeing Carole, and I go home at 8.30 in order to change my clothes to go up to the Cow & Calf. Go to the C & C with Peter M, Lynn, Dave, CD, Carol Smith, Raymond &c, all going too. Have a good night but find I'm missing Carole's company. Home at 1.30 with Dave B and Lynn. Dave and I had a great sing-along on the way home.

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Friday October 10, 1975

Carole is still at death's door. Realising this fact, I dashed into town at lunchtime to get her a box of chocolates in an attempt to show her how much I love her. Whilst in town I get myself a pair of shoes and a pair of hideous green trousers, which I don't like at all. On my arrival home I sell them to John (the trousers that is) and I find myself £8 better off. Or do I? No, I don't, because I'd have had the £8 in the first place.

Go straight to Carole's on the 33 bus. She is propped up in bed, and her grandmother, the Dowager Mrs Phillips, is being entertained by Mrs P in the drawing room. Carole does look a lot better, and the chocolates do cheer her up somewhat. I stay half an hour and then get the bus home in time for tea. Walk up the lane with Lynn.

After tea I'm once again back down the lane to the Hare. Along with Helen and CD I go to Carole's once more and spend half an hour with her again. Lynn and Dave, Sue and Peter are also there, and Dave bought her a couple of bottles of the hard stuff. I go back to the Hare and stand with CD and Martyn Cole and Ken Dibb - who is pissed. Walk home at 11.30 accompanied by CD, who is being pestered by Richard Wellock.

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Thursday October 9, 1975

I don't go to see Carole tonight because for one thing the weather was an absolute sod, and for the other thing I was rather tired and shagged out after a hard day at work. Mrs P rang me at 9pm to see if I was going down but I told her I was just about to 'hit the sack'.

Mum and Dad have an interview for the Station pub in Ilkley tomorrow morning, and they went down tonight to give it the old 'once over'. They came back with tales of wonder, and I realise now that it's probably a blessing that they never laid possession of the New Inn. I only hope that they have some success.

Yesterday at the Hare I had a bet with Helen that Princess Anne will not have a child until 1977. Next year of course is out of the question (see Sept 22, 1975), and the spring or summer of 1977 is the first opportunity for the royal pair to give the Queen a bouncing grandchild. I have placed a pound on it anyway, which makes it a very serious proposition indeed.


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Wednesday October 8, 1975

Carole is ill again. Her Mum rang me at 6.30 to say she flaked out at work and was rushed home and immediately planted in bed. After hurrying through dinner I dashed down the road to Menston, where Mrs P was carrying on as if a major disaster had befallen the House of Phillips. On being ushered into Carole's room I found a sorry sight indeed. Lying there amidst her pillows looking like death itself. I thought I'd seen the last of her, and I do so hate to see people ill because my mind goes blank, and all conversation on my part dies on my lips. I just sit looking like a spaniel in mourning, and give no comfort or cheer to the invalid in question.

I spend an hour with Carole, who angers me by predicting that I'll finish with her because she is ill all the time. Nothing is further from my mind.

I nipped into the Hare & Hounds for the last half hour and chat with CD, Helen and poor Dave (of stag party fame, who gets married on Saturday). Peter M gives me a lift up home at 10.30, and we discuss the London/Windsor excursion next week. (Uncle) John should have received my letter by now, and I hope he doesn't think I'm being somewhat rude inviting myself down like I have done.

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Tuesday October 7, 1975

A crisp, autumnal day. Cooler than yesterday but the sun seemed a good deal brighter. To Leeds with Jim Rawnsley, who takes up a new appointment next week. It is rumoured that he'll be earning £12,000 per year - and he tells me he can hardly afford a new pair of shoes!

Nothing spectacular in the news. The Prince of Wales is to become a naval captain in January. He'll have command of his own ship and operate in the North Sea. Prince Philip was a captain in the RN, and so too was George VI, George V and a score of other monarchs. The "Sailor King" is a title held above all others I think. We might have a revolution if the day ever dawns when the heir to the throne is a wing commander or brigadier in the army.

I rang Carole this afternoon and she said she felt ill again. The poor creature will never see 20 if she continues at this rate. However, she says she'll come out with me tomorrow night if it's the last thing she does. I shall have to go down to Menston to see if she's quite fit before hand.

Today I wrote to John and Sheila asking about whether I can go down and stay with them a week on Thursday. Peter M is going down to Hayes (Middx) to stay with Christopher for a few days, and so we might as well go together. Windsor is such a fantastic place too, and it's over a year since I was there. Going down on the 16th will also enable us to visit the Motor Show at Earls Court. I hope that John will find no fault in my going on those dates. He always seems to enjoy my going, and by writing as opposed to phoning I think it doesn't put him on the spot. He will have time to consider my letter, whereas ringing him would have had to produce an immediate response. I also wrote to Chris informing him of my intended state visit._______.

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Monday October 6, 1975

A nice autumn day. Work was quite busy, and will be so for about a week because Kathleen is on holiday. Nothing astounding in the news other than Ireland again.

Home at 5.20 as usual, and bump into old Harry Monkman from next door. He asks me about John's party and wants to know whether I heard him banging on the wall at 3am. I say 'no' and he raises his eyes to the heavens and says: "I still haven't got over it." The mean people we meet in life are really too numerous to mention other than to say he (Monkman) is one of the leading "meanies" alive at the moment. An unreasonable old gent.

Today is the fifth anniversary of our living at Pine Tops. Now that Mum and Dad have gone off the idea of a brewery owned pub I think we shall be in a Free House by this time next year. Dad, for one, is becoming increasingly impatient with his job and cannot be expected to do a decent days work whilst feeling the way he does. It is unfair to the police force just as much as it is unfair to him.

Carole rang at 7.30 and I had to laugh at her. She said she had skipped all the way to the phone box wearing her newv woolly mittens. Feeling devilish and wicked she had also attacked one of our innocent feline friends with a half-brick! Her sweetness is so endearing.

Spend a quiet evening. Jump into the bath at 9.20 after the news, and come down for a snack at 10.30. They all drift off to bed and leave me watching a Barbara Stanwyck film. Retire at 12.05am.

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Sunday October 5, 1975

19th after Trinity. Today is the 20th birthday of Mr Michael Matthews. I wouldn't have realised this if I hadn't made a note previously to this effect at the head of the page. I must have marked it down at the beginning of the year. I don't even know his address since he moved to Scarborough.

After a brilliant lunch I ring Carole, who is at 'George's' still. She comes round here at 3 and we watch sexy Deborah Kerr in the 1916 film 'The Prisoner of Zenda'. Corny and cheap but amusing all the same.

Lynn, Dave, Carole and me walk to 'George's' in the hope of going for a ramble over the hills, but it begins to rain and we seek refuge at Dunedin, the Macdonald ancestral pile. I play the 'Kimono my house' LP by Sparks and we all listened to the top 20. After some of the Macdonald cheese on toast I depart forn home at 7.30 so that I can ready myself for the evenings onslaught.

Carole comes for me at 8.20 and after seeing half an hour of television we get a bus to the Hare (10p each!). It's still quiet and different in our favourite tavern. No CB - which is odd for Sunday. Carole and I sit arm in arm until nearly 11 o'clock and I feel bloated after all the lager. I decide to renounce it once and for all, and at the same time tell Carole that my nail-biting days are over. I walk Carole to 'George's' and we sit until after 12. I am incredibly fond of her and hope I have found somebody at last.

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Saturday October 4, 1975


Nearly 1pm when I finally raised my weary head from the sheets. John is plodding around in the bedroom saying he's been at work all morning and calling me lazy this, lazy that and lazy the other.

Lynn and CD go into town , and I sit about waiting for Carole to ring me. She rings from 'George's' at about 3pm and orders me to go round with a pile of LPs and the Martin book on the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. I walk round in the rain half an hour later. John is of course with Maria (from now on I'll stop using the name 'George' when refering to Maria Macdonald. It's a childish practice dating back 5 years, and not a bit complementary to the young lady in question). They creep off upstairs some ten minutes after I arrive.

Carole and I pass a romantic afternoon alone, and we play 'Kimono my house' the LP by Sparks. She sews up the bottom of my jeans - whilst I am still wearing them - but whilst she's doing it I notice a change in her. The poor thing went very quiet, and looked really ill. I sat with my arms round her and she told me that one of her headaches had come on again. I told her to go to bed, and insist on my staying in with her for the evening, but she wouldn't hear of it. She came to the Hare & Hounds and I told her I'd willingly stay at home with her. Women! But at 10pm her head cleared and she laughed for the first time today. I didn't realise just how much I depend on her to keep me cheery. All the others wanted to go to the Cow & Calf, but Carole, Sue, Pete N and me decided to go back to Maria's for the night. Mr & Mrs Macdonald are in Cardiff or somewhere. So only the four of us were in until John and Maria come back at 2.30am.

Sue and Peter were alseep on the settee for the last hour whilst we played records. Home at 4am after coffee.

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Sunday March 25, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn British Summer Time begins 3rd Sunday in Lent Bacon sandwiches and the Sunday Telegraph. Fuss about the Queen's visit to ...