Monday May 20, 1974

Up at 7.30. See Judith Rushworth at Guiseley Train Station and Pamela. J was in hysterics about my list of possible bridegrooms which I drew up last week. She says she'd like to see more. At the YP I discover that Kathleen is on holiday for a week and that Anne is in charge. She is furious. Ray didn't come in last night and all the filing and work is piled up waiting to be done. She rings Ray and his wife informs us that he is ill. I immediately offer my services for night duty and Anne is greatly relieved. Sarah looks beautiful - the week without seeing her has made me realise just how pretty she is. Leave at 9.10 for home, passing Carol on the way. Mum comes in at 1.0 and we have fish and chips for lunch.

Valery Giscard d'Estaing is the President of France - the youngest in one hundred years. No doubt he'll put Wilson in his place about re-negotiating the terms of entry into the Common Market. M. Mitterrand would have been a better president from the Labour government's point of view, but I am glad the right wing managed to scrape through with a victory. Communists presidents are all very well, but not when they are only 22 miles across the English Channel!

Read Anita Leslie's 'Edwardians in Love' and see that 64 years ago this very day King Edward VII was buried at Windsor. I expect that morsel of information thrills you to bits.

YP at 5 (again!). Quiet and pleasant evening, and go for a drink with my racing correspondent friend. Home at 12.15 to find Mum and Dad drinking coffee. Poor Uncle Bert is seriously ill in hospital again and Auntie Eddy rang from Nottingham & was very upset. Poor Sue took the call and it choked her. Mum and Dad are going to see him at the earliest opportunity tomorrow. Mother has said all along that Uncle Bert was far worse than any of us realised and it now seems she is correct. She says they'll amputate his foot, or even his whole leg, within the next few months, and Mum is invariably right.

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Tuesday April 30, 1974

Rose at 7.30. Very warm and sunny. Surely, today must be the best day we have experienced this year. Very busy and at about 3 Kathleen was furious about missing pictures of Billy Bremner which for some reason are in London! Janice was a bitch all day and I was relieved to get away from her at 5. Anne and I walked down Wellington Street in the warm sunshine which was a fantastic feeling after being cooped up in the YP all day long.

See the state visit on the 6 o'clock news. Queen Margrethe positively dwarfed the Queen, who was 7 or 8 inches smaller. The Queen was in powder blue and the Danish sovereign in canary yellow. Feeling furious that no consensed showing of the visit is on tv tonight. Evidently the BBC think that the sporting activities of Jack Charlton, and the prospects of having Francois Mitterrand as President of France, is more important than the visit to this country of a foreign head of state.

Do the lawns with Dad and find the lawnmower sadly dilapidated since I last saw it. Tv in the evening is, as I've already said, dead, and I turn, in my boredom, to 'Have his Carcase' by Dorothy L. Sayers.

I am working on Friday night and am taking Thursday afternoon off and when I told Helen this she look like she'd been told she had six months left to live. Sadly, my Fridays will be spent at the YP for several weeks now. Bed at 12.

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