Tuesday May 20, 1975

Hot day. At lunchtime I have a few photographs taken for my ten year passport. They look really grotty, but not all that bad when you think it costs about £2 to be photographed by a cravat-wearing Old Etonian with a lisp and double-barrelled name for something very similar, but probably a bit more glossy. Don't take this as an insult to Lord Snowdon please, because nothing was further from my mind. OK, he may be an Old Etonian with a camera, but he doesn't lisp, and hasn't worn a cravat in donkey's years.

At 4.30 armed with a bottle of Lucozade I marched on Leeds Infirmary and threw myself upon my ailing aunt, the one and only Mabel Paine. I didn't recognise her at first because she seems to have lost a good deal of weight since we last met, but otherwise she was very cheerful. The thought of having cancer worried her to death (Oops) of course, but they've assured her now that it's all clear. No more treatment required, and by Sunday she'll be a free woman again. I really despise hospitals. The smells and the general lay-out make me weak at the knees. It was so nice to get out into the fresh air at about 6 o'clock - away from the stench of death and illness. I only hope to God that I'll never have to spend any length of time in such a place. Mind you, by the time I'm 60 they'll have done away with hospitals and they'll be injecting OAPs with cyanide. The nice, easy way out.

See 'Edward VII' at 9 o'clock, and retire at 11.

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Tuesday August 20, 1974

Very warm day but bloody lousy from my point of view. To the YP at 9am - Janice and Carol are both off leaving Kathleen, Sarah and myself. Quite busy.

Going to lunch at 1 o'clock I get something in my eye which iritates me. By 2 the pain is unbearable, and having puchased a £9 postal order I return to the YP and go to the medical room where the little man there gives me an eye-bath - which proves unsuccessful. At 3 I go back to see the little man and he repeats the treatment - which, again, is unsuccessful. Kathleen finally decides to allow me to go to the hospital and I stagger to Leeds Infirmary. A doctor plays around with my eye and pulls out a piece of grit, relieving me of great agonies. I stagger to the bus station where I find consolation in the shape of Susan Bottomley, who joins me on the 35 bus. We discuss nothing in paticular but she tells that June passed her 'A' level and is going to college for certain.

My eye continues to be very painful and I don't intend straining myself any more this evening. I'm about to climb into a hot bath and hope to retire early tonight.

The whole family have been very sympathetic about my tragic disposition and Mama expressed relief I hadn't rung her beforehand because she'd hav been worried sick.

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