Monday March 19, 1979

_. Thaw today. Met Sue & Pete in Guiseley at 5 o'clock. He tells me he is suffering from gastroenteritis - and it's the day before his 21st birthday. One could have been cruel and asked whether his celebrations were going to go with a blast, but it wouldn't be very tasteful.

Mum and Dad were out all day (and night) and when I departed to my chambers at 11:35pm - still no sign of them. I think they have been up to Grassington.

Dave phoned from Stockport asking if I want to go there for the weekend. I don't think I can go because of the sudden glut of parties. One of Pete & Chippy's old pals is throwing a melé on Friday, and on Saturday Peter is expected to provide some sort of extravaganza for his birthday.

Saw "Fawlty Towers" followed by Dame Edna Everage ~ Superstar and Housewife, which was a good laugh, but not everyone's cup of tea. Sue and Pete hated it. They deserted me at 10:30.

Richard Beckinsale, the young actor, has died aged 31.

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Saturday March 10, 1979

_. Woke up at about 10 feeling ghastly. Shivering with cold and full of the jitters. This is probably due to the fact that mildew and fungus is growing over my solitary sheet and something resembling the Victoria Falls is gushing down the crooked, picturesque interior walls.

At 11:30 Dave G, Sue, Pete and I found refuge in the Foresters [another charming pub]. By now I was feeling decidedly rough and unready. A few pints later I had had enough and decided to leave them and walk to the car. My knees knocked together like empty milk bottles, and I could barely move. It all sounds over-dramatized but I can assure you I thought the end - my end - had come. I slept in the warm car for an hour until the mob left the Foresters and decided to leave for home.

I would rather not discuss the events of tonight in any way. I phoned Chris Ratcliffe to ask what he intended doing tonight with John and Steve H and he said he would go down to the Shoulder. I agreed and said OK, but thought I'd never make it.

To Marlene  and Frank's at 6:30 for Auntie Mabel's 60th birthday party. I was in no fit state to be out in company, and after a few glasses of whisky I was dead to the world and asleep in a armchair.  At 10 o'clock Sue, Pete, Dave G, Ally and John P went off to find Chris R, John and Steve & co, but I was unable to move. Auntie Mabel says it is all because I am burning the candle at both ends. Aarrgghhhhhh....

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Friday March 9, 1979

_. Home at 5pm. Found the house full. John [Pinder], Alison, Dave G,  and Jacq. Yes, Jacq. She had been out to lunch with Lynn and decided to pay Mama a visit. However, the poor girl looked ghastly pale because Mum had tied her to a chair and force fed her with homemade beetroot wine. She [Jacq] looked on the verge of collapse. She left at 6:30 in her rusty, over-priced Hillman Imp.

At about 7pm John P and Alison took Sue, Pete N, Dave G and I to the cottage they have taken for the week at Grassington. A damp, tiny little place, but undoubtedly romantic. It was Dave G's first visit to the Yorkshire Dales.  We went into the Devonshire [Arms] at 8pm and ate scampi & chips, and consumed a moderate, pleasant amount of alcohol. At 12 we stood up to leave [yes, bloody midnight] but John was still chatting to the pub landlord.

Sue and Pete went to bed and Dave G and I drank the best part of two bottles of wine. Alison and John didn't return from the Devonshire until 2am. John was horribly pissed and staggered off to bed dragging debris and leaving a path of devastation behind him. Dave made Alison and I dinner [or was it an early breakfast?] & we talked until nearly dawn. The place was so wet that even the coal refused to burn.

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Wednesday June 23, 1976

Out to Grassington and then onto the Miners' Arms at Glasshouses (surely, Greenhow?) with Chris, Peter M, and Andy Graham. The latter mentioned is indeed a rare sight in public life these days without the ever watchful Linda Smith lurking somehwhere in the shadows.

Peter got terribly drunk and the so-called highlight of the evening was the return journey when Andy seriously attempted to uproot every sign post between Bolton Abbey and Guiseley. Chris had about ten road signs stacked in the back of his van by 1.30am and I found the whole operation ridiculous and not in the least amusing.____________.

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Saturday February 28, 1976

Chris, Christine, Carole and I go up to the Yorkshire Dales for a drink tonight. He takes me to Carole's at 8pm and I wait with Lord & Lady Phillips while she gets ready. We are all off and in the direction of Grassington by 8.30 and we certainly make a funny foursome. Christine and I laugh at the usual crude things much to Chris's embarrassment. Carole never notices the vulgar trend in the conversation and she shuts herself away in that lonely little world of hers. I am stunned when she tells me she's never been to Grassington before. Oh, when she saw the old fashioned hand-pumps in the Devonshire (Arms) she thought they were a new invention! Benenden must have become a really slack school since Princess Anne left. Lord Phillips should perhaps have sent little Caroline to a state school where she might have had more experience of beer dispensing equipment. We have scampi and chips at the Devonshire and leave at about 11 o'clock for home. Carole feels sick on the way. She isn't a good traveller really. She should have reminded me of this malady because we needn't have ventured so far into the hills.

We have a serious chat in the car coming home, the four of us that is, and the usual topical things were discussed, i.e. euthenasia and abortion, &c. Chris and I are always on the verge of coming to blows and long painful silences inevitably follow. He tells me that he's seen in tonight's EP that Princess Anne is pregnant. I do not believe it. My old Olympic theory will be correct and she will not be pregnant before September at least.

Home at 12.30.


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Sunday August 31, 1975

14th after Trinity. Up at lunchtime again, as is traditional at weekends. Mum makes a cooked breakfast and then departs to the Commercial where she is under training for her future bar experience. John and I go down at 12.30 to be joined by Andy, who is on his own without Linda, who is of course on holiday in Torquay with Miss Carol Smith and Miss Christine White. __________. Mum looks a natural behind the bar, and Ron and Annie are really good to her. Ron even suggested that I should go down to get a bit of practice in, and he said "you might as well come here and make mistakes than make things hard for your Mum and Dad when they're in a new pub." A tremendous offer for him to make.

At 1.30 John goes off on a picnic with 'George' to Grassington, and I help collect the glasses for Mum to wash. When they call 'time' Dad and I stay behind to discuss things and we have a few drinks on the house before coming home at 3.30. Lynn and Dave are watching an old Kenneth More film and we then all dig into a salad. I have my usual Sunday afternoon sleep in the bath, and lay on the bed viewing the ceiling for half an hour or so. John doesn't return from his picnic and I make my own way to the Hare at 8.30. Andy arrives at the same time, but the turnout is unusually low. Just Andy, Christine D, and Carole, who comes straight from Norfolk at about 9 o'clock. John and 'George' do make a flying appearance, but when I say flying I mean flying. Judy, with whom I was once very close (see Diary, May 3, 1974) calls in at the Hare, but doesn't speak, and neither do I. The remaining four of us move on to the Fox in Andy's car, where we stay for the last drink. After depositing Christine at home we come back to our place for a coffee. Andy seems to think we should arrange another camping expedition before the end of September, but I fear the weather won't hold out much longer. The smell of autumn is already in the air. I sit snuggled up against Carole on the sofa. __________.Andy took her home at about 11.30 and I retired to bed.

This pub business is exciting me. The Menston Arms may well be ours before the month of September is out, and I'm building my hopes on it. However, Ron was saying it's better to get a poor pub and build it up because you can only go one way then. A pub with a good reputation is a good deal harder to retain in the same standard.

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Tuesday May 27, 1975

Don't feel like compiling any events for today. In fact I feel like putting an end to this miserable diary once and for all. OK, I'm depressed and I don't know what I'm saying, but you've got yo admit, it isn't very exciting, is it?

First day back at the YP. No astounding news in the press, and 'Edward VII' wasn't on TV tonight because of the industrial dispute with the technicians.

Dave, Lynn, John and I go to the Hare & Hounds for yet another drink. This makes the total of boozy consecutive days to six. Last Wednesday at the Hare, Thursday with Gillian, Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Grassington, Monday back at the Hare of course and then today. However, it was Edward VII's fault tonight.

Home at 10 o'clock to hear on the news that a bus accident occurred near Grassington this afternoon killing 31 women and the driver. It is Britain's worst ever road accident. To think that yesterday afternoon we were driving around on the self same autobahn.

-=-

Monday May 26, 1975

Holiday in England, N. Ireland & Wales. The last Day: Awake coughing and sneezing because of the feathers in my sleeping bag. Emerged from the tent looking like a Pantomime Duck, or something. After dangling my head in the river and taking in the air I clear up a bit, but it'll be weeks before my sinuses clear properly. This allergy of mine is a tiresome hinderance. The same thing happened when I went with CB to Sheffield. All Dave Baker's sleeping bags are full of little feathers, and I never fail to succumb to the horrors of them.

After breakfast (another fried one) we go into Grassington for one final boozing session. The town is full of Morris Dancers, and when they came in the pub we couldn't hear ourselves speak for the jingling of bells and other clattering noises associated with this hideous village pastime.

After spending an hour in the pub we made our way home, via Appletreewick and other scenic places.

On our arrival at the Devonshire Arms we find a note pinned to John's car from Mum and Dad, who'll now be in Scotland. He managed to get the car going, and we were home for 5 o'clock.

After tea we go to the Hare & Hounds (just for a change) and I spend the whole time chatting with Christine, who passed a miserable weekend quite alone. Gary was away pot-holing - creep that he is.

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Sunday May 25, 1975

Trinity Sunday. Day Three at Grassington: Nice day. Beautiful weather, though probably just a bit windy. After waking up at the same hideous, and unusual time as yesterday we once again partook of a fried breakfast, which isn't agreeing with John at all.

We intended going off to Malham, but because of the time we changed our minds and decided to go swimming at Skipton Baths. Spend a good afternoon in Skipton, and feel greatly rejuvenated after my first splash around in a pool for what seems like decades.

Back at the tent we lounge around in deckchairs listening to the Top 20 on Radio One. Well, Pete and myself did this. John and Chris were busy frying tea.

After the traditional fried meal we bung a few stones in the river and collect wood for another camp fire and generally prepare ourselves for the coming onslaught of alcohol.

To Linton and Grassington drinking. John is back on form again and we manage to deplete the beer stocks of several Yorkshire pubs.

The second camp fire proved successful again, but we are all melancholy because it's our last night. Chris was acting daft when he saw the full moon, complaining that he believed in the likes of Dracula and other creations of Hammer Horror Inc. & Warner Brothers. It was impossible to make him see reason. We ate baked potatoes on the fire, and argued whether Princess Anne had done the right thing by marrying Mark Phillips.

Bed at 2.30.

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Saturday May 24, 1975

Day Two at Grassington: Don't awake until about 11am which is quite remarkable. I always imagined the campers would have to crawl out the sack at the crack of dawn because of the rumpus created by cocks, and other various poultry, or because of acute cold, and lumpy ground, &c. But strangely enough, the night was tranquil and I slept like a log throughout.

After a greasy breakfast and a splash in the river we drove into Grassington for a general potter about. Nothing of great consequence, so we motored around aimlessly and fell upon Kettlewell. The sky was very dull, and the air bracing, and so we nipped into the nearest warm haven for a few hours. As it happened it turned out to be a pub, a most congenial experience. We came out feeling a good deal more good humoured then when we went in , and so our tripwasn't in vain.

Aysgarth was the next port of call and we were unimpressed by the falls therein. Not a particularly stunning sight.

Back to Grassington's ale houses in the evening, and John ended up drinking tomato joices because of a stomach disorder. He blames all the fried nosh, but I can't help thinking it has something to do with the alcoholic intake of yesterday.

Back to the tent for a camp fire until after 1am. We're all getting on better than I imagined we would. Peter isn't the swine I always imagined he'd be to camp with.

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Friday May 23, 1975

Day one of the Open Event at Grassington. At 6.30 John and I go to the Hare in order that I can pick up my jacket which I accidentally left under the juke box on Wednesday. We stay for a few drinks. Peter and Chris come in. They're laden with the precious tent and various other camping odds and ends.

Mum and Dad go to Scotland tomorrow. In the new car too. They haven't been off, quite alone, for any length of time before (not since the famous honeymoon anyway) so it should be quite a fantastic break.

Back to the Camping Trip: Horror of Horrors! John's car broke down near the Devonshire Arms, Bolton Abbey, and we had to dump the car in the pub car park. The four of us piled into Pete's van and we bombed into the Dales, weighed down with tons of camping gear and miscellaneous rubbish.

After to failing to get on a camp site we deposit ourselves in a field, next to the Wharfe, about ten minutes out of Grassington. The tent was erected before 9.30 and we made the pub in Grassington shortly after. Although the pubs close legally at 11pm, the Forester's Arms in Grassington was open to customers at 11.30, which amused John no end, though Peter did seem a little edgy. ________.

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Sunday September 8, 1974

Wake up snug as a bug in a rug at 10.30. A wasp settles in Dave L's hair, and the hilarity caused by Pete spraying Dave's curly mop with fly-killer will be remembered long after the events of the weekend have passed into oblivion.

Hear on the news over toast and marmalade that Harold Wilson is with the Queen at Balmoral no doubt discussing election dates and tactics. October 3 or 10 seems to be the likely choice but nobody knows which one it is other than Harold, Her Majesty and Mrs Wilson (surely he passes on these little secrets to his dear wife?).

Dave L and I go with a camera for a tramp over the moors, taking hurried shots of sheep and large fungi plants feeding off the bark of rotten trees.

Very nice afternoon and the first nice weather we've had all weekend. Dave Lawson is a great chap. I've known him since 1967 and he's never changed one iota since that time - he has physically and mentally of course - but as far as outlook, humour and general appearance - not at all. One thing's for certain. I get on with no one better than Dave, never have done.

Back from the moors at 6.15. Sit cooling feet and sipping hot tea until the end of 'Pick of the Pops' at 7 - when we have a mad half hour with the camera. Back to the pub in Linton. Fruit machines too. Dave L, Dave B, Phyllis Whitethighs and I form a syndicate on the fruit machine and manage to lose £2 between us. All heartbroken. Leave for home at about 10.15.

Back before 11. Mum and Dad are at Pudsey but I wait up for them, eating steak until 12. See the newspapers for the first time since Friday. Fantastic weekend.

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Saturday September 7, 1974

As I've already said, we were attacked by savage wasps whilst listening to the Ed Stewart Show. Fortunately, Chris found some fly killer in the caravan and we managed to keep them off us whilst we got dressed.

Make breakfast much to the disgust of Linda, who wanted an extra 10 minutes in bed with Andy. Chris takes the three of us into Grassington for the afternoon, where the torrential rain lashed down upo us.

Buy several necessities of food, like cocktail cherries, and manadarin oranges. Also buy on impulse, a large feather duster - don't ask me why.

Go into a pub for lunch and meet a bloke who dwells at Rawdon, who was far too familiar with us for comfort - even going so far of offer us beds in his caravan if the weather continues to worsen. Andy labelled him a queer from the start, but I just think he was being slightly over-friendly.

Stagger round the camp-site in a gale force wind, glass of martini in one hand, trying to secure the tent, which unfortunately rips open in a sudden surge of wind. The destroyed tent renders us homeless for the night. Peter offers us all beds in the caravan which we gratefully accept (good of him I'm sure). Back on a pub-crawl again where I fall foul to the lure of fruit machines which Dave Lawson introduced me to. Good evening & then back to the caravan feeling full of cold, no doubt caught off Chris. Everyone in the caravan except Andy, Linda, Ray and Gill. Carol Smith and Christine Whitethighs get drunk and fight like cats in the night.

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Friday September 6, 1974

The begining of the 2 day event in Grassington.

Chris collects us at 7.30 with Dave L, and we all pile into the car with too much lugggage for comfort.

The weather isn't at all too bad, and at 8.30 we are at the caravan, where Andy, Linda, Gill ad Raymond are rather amusing playing cards whilst the beds stand invitingly empty. Go to a local pub, which one I can't remember, but we stay till about 11.15 drinking all the shorts we can think of - playing dominos and clowning around in general.

 Buy a large bottle of Martini Rosso, me and Dave that is, before going back to Denny's makesift tent for a booze-up. Andy, Ray and the girls hog Peter's caravan and ban us from entering, leaving Dave, John, Chris and I to the tent. Settle down to a drunken escapade - not too drunken I might add - sit listening to the radio clad in sleeping bags until 2-ish. Sleep until 5 when we are awakened by a horrific rainstorm lashing the tent - remain comfortable and calm throughout. Laugh with Dave and poor Chris who is almost out of the tent flap.

Sleep till 7.30. Attacked by a swarm of marauding wasps which interrupt our peaceful rest. Hell, I've just realised I'm writing about Saturday morning which should be on the next page. P.T.O.


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