Tuesday December 5, 1978

Fog again.  I didn't get to work until 9.05am but who cares? No NUJ members were working and we found Malcolm Barker attempting to bring out a newspaper quite alone.

I saw in the Daily Telegraph death announcements that Sir David Salt, Bt, has died. When he was in his fifties in 1975 he married an old woman in her 70s. Also spotted that Lord Harewood's aunt, Viscountess Boyne, has died aged 75. Malcolm was thrilled by these items of news and snatched them up it fill the pages of the pathetic EP.

At 3pm with all the routine work finished I left the office and attempted to get but a bus but none were forthcoming, so I caught a train at 3:45.

Silly Old Jim

Read Kenneth Harris's interview with the Prime Minister in the Observer (Sunday).  Silly Old Jim (Callaghan) says he's going to go on looking after us until he's in his eighties. The beloved leader fails to see why politicians give up and retire at sixty when they are the peak of their brilliance. I agree, Jim. Churchill was almost 150 when they finally shot him, and Mr Gladstone was 463.

I am going to give you ten guesses as to which British monarch was born on December 6. (Yes, I know that's tomorrow). Come on! Who am I? I was styled "Dei Gratia Rex Angliae et Franciae et Dominus Hiberniae" and was born at Windsor on Dec 6, 1421. Crowned at Westminster on Nov 6, 1429, and crowned King of France at Notre Dame, Dec 17, 1431. I married April 22, 1445, Margaret of Anjou, daughter of Rene, Duke of Anjou, titular King of Sicily, Naples and Jerusalem (descended from the Count of Anjou, brother of Charles V). I was deposed after the second Battle of St Albans, March 4, 1461, and re~instated Oct 9, 1470, from when I reigned until taken prisoner in April 1471; I died in the Tower of London shortly after the Battle of Tewkesbury, May 4, 1471, it is supposed by violence, and was buried at Windsor. Who am I? For the answer refer to the block capitals above Dec 9.

-=-