Saturday May 4, 1974

Mum gets me up at 9 and I go to Leeds on the 9.20 55 bus. Kathleen, Anne and Janice are working, and I do my usual routine until 1.30 when I go, leaving horrid little Janice to fend for herself. I wander out into the Headrow and find myself deep into a march of the Leeds Communist Party, which is hardly my cup of tea. My intention is to go to Burton's Arcade, but the heat, crowds of communists, and my lack of patience makes me decide not to bother.

Home after 3 and have a couple of chicken sandwiches and two beers. Mum, Dad, Sue, Peter, John and one of Dad's police friends are watching the FA Cup Final between Newcastle and Liverpool. Princess Anne presented the cup to Liverpool who win 3-0. The poor princess looked disgusted when the crowds were singing their own version of the National Anthem.

At 6.15 MM rings. He says that David, Marita and himself are going to the ABC Cinema in Leeds and asks me to join them. I say I'll ring Marita which I do at 6.30 after first contacting Chris. Marita picks me up at 6.45, with her mother, and we then get David, then MM. We go see 'The Great Gatsby' - starring Mia Farrow and Robert Redford. The others hate it, but somehow it doesn't have the same effect on me, and I enjoyed it. We all go back to MMs_____. Marita looked dead. David seems to have something wrong with his eyes. Marita brings me back at 1.30.

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Monday April 29, 1974

Warm and clammy all day. Quite busy at the YP. Kathleen gives me a claim form for my taxi expenses for last Thursday and I go to the cashiers where I emerge several minutes later with two crisp, new pound notes and four silver ten pence pieces. This sudden glut of wealth brightens and cheers the remainder of the day no end. We laugh at Sarah, who is somewhere in the midst of revolution-torn Portugal, and think it an amusing coincidence that she was also in Greece last summer when when the coup d'etat took place and the monarchy was 'axed'. Obviously, Sarah must have a diverse influence on the sanity and reason of foreign nations. Let us hope that she will go to Russia next year, for who knows, the Tsar may well be back in the Winter Palace, thanks to Sarah!

See part two of Dorothy L. Sayers book 'The Nine Tailors' - which is quite enthralling. Ian Carmichael plays a brilliant Lord Peter Wimsey. The books could have been written especially for him.

Make toast for supper and laugh at poor Peter who had to sit through 'The Way We Were' starring Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford at Yeadon Cinema. Love stories aren't quite young Nason's cup of tea.

Cousin Jill had a birthday today - the exact numerical situation fails me, but I think she must be nearly 12 or 13 if my shoddy calculations prove correct.

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