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Saturday April 21, 1979

._. Bournemouth. Her Majesty's fifty third birthday. Breakfast was served at 8:30. Sausage, bacon, eggs, and lashings of hot, flowing tomato, the tinned variety. Afterwards we congregated in the [dry] lounge to discuss tactics. Neil and his two stooges announced that they wanted to go watch an amateur football team by the name of Stockport County, who are playing at Portsmouth this afternoon. Obviously, I was horrified and dumfounded. I said: "leave me out" and immediately Dave and Garry followed. Billy, who enjoys a game of football said he would go along with the Portsmouth trippers, and that was that.

Garry, Dave and I wandered around the town and then went in the car to Boscombe Pier where we listened to Sooty and Sweep singing 'Teddy Bear's Picnic'. At 12 we met Alison near the Royal Bath Hotel. Her car was making a terrible noise and the exhaust was blowing out filth and choking fumes. Experts afterwards said it was probably the silencer, or lack of it. She leapt from her motor and we all took off in Garry's car to a pub on the outskirts of the town.  _________. It was as though Alison and I had never been apart. Garry announced that he could have grabbed hold of her and cuddled her tightly. It was great how the four of us got on so well. Garry, I am sure, fancies her. Things become very blurred. Pints of lager and Pernod make a lethal mixture. We took Alison back to our hotel and something must have been said because the bar door was unlocked and unbolted and Arthur, the toothless proprietor, was soon pulling pints like something possessed.

We drank until about 6:30 and then Alison drove us, in Garry's car, to the beach where, wearing only my underpants, I took a dip in the sea, and poor Dave vomited over the sand. Garry and Alison spent ages lobbing pebbles into the sea. Truly delightful.

Back at the Gainsborough we sobered up, went out for a pizza and then more drink. Alison went at 1:00am.

-=-

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 ...