Sunday January 1, 1978

_.1st after Christmas - New Year's Day. Yes, at midnight I was in Edith's garden with a solitary Persian cat. Alone with just my thoughts of 1977. They didn't come to much really. Minutes later I was inside being kissed, fondled and embraced.

Edith & Ernest: not like OAPs.

From here we made a convoy to Pine Tops where the family had finally arrived. Mum, a bit sozzled, is with Christine and Len ( a couple of her buddies). The party got under way nicely but I detected a more reserved atmosphere this year and a falling of of the numbers attending. But I enjoyed it all immensely.

I won't bore you with the party details because when you've read about one you've read about them all, don't you think? I got to my bed at some time after 6:00am. _____________.

Woke up at 12 or so. Jacqui and I went to Edith & Ernest's at 2 and stayed until after 5. She thinks Ern is really interesting. I thought she would. The Blackwells aren't like OAPs at all. He reminds me of Uncle Albert. Back home for a nosh and then watched the film 'Nicholas & Alexandra'. Jacqui was bored by it.

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Thursday January 1, 1976

The New Year. For the past five or six years these so called New Years have always begun with people vomiting all over the place and crawling around on hands and knees moaning things like 'Oh my bloody head's gorn and blown orf' and such like. Why we do it, I fail to see.

After collapsing in the lounge after completing the washing up I sleep until 11 o'clock or something like that. Carole's gone when I eventually come round, and Dave B sits around gloating at my obvious discomfort.

A cooked breakfast only makes matters worse and by noon I'm fighting for my life, as the papers like to say when people are in fact just dying.

Dave L gave me three tickets for 'Jaws' last night, and Carole, Chris and myself are going tonight.

At 1pm John, Lynn, Dave B and I go down to the Commercial for a few drinks, but I stick to tomato juice and coca cola. Dave and Lynn are too frisky to be real, and watching them laughing and joking coupled with the fumes, grime, and the stale smell of the pub only makes me feel worse. I go for a walk round Esholt churchyard to cheer myself up. It's just amazing how many people died in Esholt in 1953. They must have been slowly bored to death by the pageant of the Coronation. It starts to rain at 1.30 and so I go back to join the others in the pub.

Drive home at 3 and it begins to snow. Arrive home all singing 'White Christmas'.

I go straight to bed and wake up at 5.30. The snow is very deep and I worry about Chris and Carole getting up the hill safely. They arrive at 7 and it takes great skill to scale our drive, which would prove a task even for Sir Edmund Hillary.

The film (Jaws) was on in Bradford and was absolutely fantastic. Not over-rated one single bit but for Carole it was too frightening and she was in tears at the end. Home after 11. Chris and Carole came in for a coffee.

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Birth of Mig's Journal

On January 1 1973 I was a 17 year-old living at Pine Tops, 58 Hawksworth Lane, Guiseley. I was a pupil in the 6th form at Benton Park Grammar School, Rawdon. At home I lived with my parents, Lawrence (born in 1934) a police constable based at Guiseley police station; mother Nora (born 1935) who worked as a secretary at Barnes & Winder (trailers?) at White Cross, Guiseley. My siblings are John (born 1956), an apprentice joiner from 1971 with Slater & Padgett, of Yeadon; and 2 sisters, Lynn (born 1958), a schoolgirl; and Susan (born 1959) a schoolgirl.

In 1973 I was , apparently, obsessed with June Bottomley and the 23 year-old Princess Anne and was somewhat over zealous with my usage of the exclamation mark.

Some of the characters appearing in my 1973 journal:
Uncle Harry (1922-94) my father's eccentric brother. Policeman and heavy drinker.

Toffer Riley, aka Christopher Riley, owner of the Chuck Wagon, Guiseley restaurant. Bearded, long hair.

Sue Riley (born 1950) Toffer's wife

Dave Lawson (born 1955) schoolfriend since 1967 who moved to Benton Park with me from Guiseley Secondary School in 1971. Later teacher and market garden proprietor.

Some schoolfriends: Christopher Ratcliffe (born 1955); Christine Braithwaite (born 1956); Louise Harris; Denise Akroyd (born 1956); June Margaret Bottlomley (born 1956); Graham Cowburn (known as Cowie); etc.

This journal begins on January 1, 1973. It was born during a country in crisis. The Heath government was on its last legs. The "Three Day Week" reigned. TV closed down in the evening. The nation was on strike. Power cuts, &c. The idea of writing a diary in a Pepys-like setting next to a burning candle inspired me to take up my pen. I compiled my diary in a page-a-day WH Smith diary. It runs from Jan 1 1973 to somewhere in 1991 and consists of millions of words. Would it be a good idea to publish, in an abridged form to protect the dead, my banal outpourings? Yes. So here goes