Showing posts with label samuel pepys. Show all posts
Showing posts with label samuel pepys. Show all posts

20130613

Thursday May 18, 1978

Work day and night. Hacking up old newspapers all day and slapping paint on the lounge all night. Absolutely nothing else to report. Oh yes, I have.

Lynn was splattered all over the front page of the EP this evening and sales have probably rocketed because of it. She was sprawled all over the wing of a new £84,000 aircraft at Yorkshire Light Aircraft Co. I told her she should receive 'royalties' for her sales technique, and I don't say it as a light hearted quip either. How much money would Ursula Andress or Raquel Welch receive for advertising in such a way?

Jacq and I went to the library (again) at lunchtime. I have finally discarded Samuel Pepys. He was a decent sort, but to be honest I just haven't had the time to read his confounded diaries fully. After a month I've only covered six months of his daily natterings.

20130612

Wednesday May 3, 1978

You won't believe this but today we actually experienced sunshine. At one point during the afternoon I was to be seen winding my way on foot from Rawdon to my home ~ without the benefit of waterproof garments of any kind and with only a thin woollen pullover to protect me from the elements. It was indeed a Spring day.

On the BBC 6 o'clock news Kenneth Kendall told us that Princess Margaret is in hospital with gastroentiritis, but no further information is forthcoming. Mum, suspicious as ever, asks me if I know exactly what is really wrong with Princess Margaret. She never believes anything she reads in the Press. She even suggests that Mr Llewellyn's exile to Morocco has caused HRH to make an attempt on her own life! This is unlikely. Princess Margaret and the Earl of Snowdon 'celebrate' 18 years of marriage on Saturday. I do feel sorry for her and the hellish two or three years she's experienced and my advice to the royal lady is get off to North Africa and legalise things with Roddy and tell this feeble country of ours to stuff their £50,000 per annum. Frankly, we don't deserve you, Margaret.

This evening I cut all the lawns (with a lawn mower of course) and then watched the tv until it exploded. My volume of Pepys was upstairs and I was so lazy I couldn't be bothered to go upstairs and bring it down.

Lynn came in at about 9. She's ill again. The poor girl is forever plagued with sickness, tummy aches, constipation, &c, and the doctor seems unable to do anything about it. It worries Mum a good deal. I told Lynn to eat prunes but nobody ever listens to my advice. A great deal of profitable, useful and highly informed information of mine is currently floating around in the atmosphere. Given time I do suppose that some alien power will pick up my signals and make radio contact.

Retire to Pepys, bed and sanity at 12:35am.

-=-

20130611

Tuesday April 25, 1978

Is this journal becoming increasingly boring? At twenty three I may well have lost my lustre. I only hope that you, dear reader, will bear with me through the morose flow of daily trivia. One must, above all things, take the rough with the smooth.

Anyway, Jacqueline Mary Sate and I did once again meet for light refreshment in the period of our lunchtime. The Ostlers is now a familiar scene on these filthy, soaking afternoons. ________________.

The diaries of Samuel Pepys are keeping me gripped to my chair. King Charles II is now firmly established upon his throne. It's a pleasure to read. Eleven years of Puritanical chaos must have been Hell for all normal, fun-loving souls. I, for one, would have taken a visa and escaped to Majorca until Mr Cromwell snuffed it.

-=-

Wednesday April 19, 1978

Another busy day at the YP.

Jacq and I went to the Central at lunchtime where we had just one miserable drink. We discussed my job and I vowed that by the beginning of August I'll be in new employment. We discussed all possibilities from milkman, to brain surgeon and ITN newscaster. Jacq has just spent £15 on a new pair of shoes which consist of three straps of cream leather with heels at one end. Nice though. She is sceptical about the weekend arrangements. She isn't acquainted with John (Pinder) and Alison and fails to see how easily we are going to obtain lodgings for Saturday night and thinks it impossible that our intended hosts will chauffeur us back to London on Sunday. I have greater faith in John William Hutchinson Pinder, Esq, and Miss Alison Mary Dixon.

Got a lift back to Guiseley with Jim. In fact this evening I was summoned to his office at the Civic Hall where I waited for him to terminate another conference on the banning of the NF march in Leeds on Saturday. I was home for just after 6.

This evening sport dominated the television but I didn't watch thanks to the mysterious grip of Samuel Pepys. I have read 122 pages. I find it all very fascinating.King Charles II is preparing to return to his kingdom from exile at Breda.

On the 9 o'clock news I saw Prince Andrew make his parachute drop over some misty, southern county. He said he had enjoyed it very much. It's the first time I've heard the 18 year-old prince speak. All the women go quite mad over him. Even mother casts James Garner, the American actor, aside at the sight of Her Majesty's second son scrambling across a turnip field all entangled in his rip cord.

Bed at midnight with Samuel Pepys.


Samuel Pepys's diary.

The family tell me that I look pale and in some cases yellow. Sunken eyes were mentioned. Blimey, is my age showing at last?

-=-

Friday April 14, 1978

Mother woke me at 10:30 with a coffee and the horrible Daily Mail. Half an hour later they collected Edith and Ernest and set off to Morecambe where they are holidaying for the weekend.

A bright, sunny morning, but the confounded snow is still clinging to the garden. The poor daffodils look absolutely stupid. I sat with the radio blasting merrily away and with a volume of Mr Pepys's journal laying open. The 1650s were no less permissive than the 1970s. Some of the people today who moan about the state of affairs ~ morally ~ really should spend half an hour with Samuel Pepys, Esq.

I spent the whole day eating, reading and being blasted out of my chair by the record player. Sarah phoned at lunchtime to ask for the maiden name of the divorced wife of the present Earl of Dartmouth. After a slight pause I told her that the lady is the former Miss Raine McCorquodale, now wife of Lord Spencer, and daughter of the revolting authoress Barbara Cartland. To be honest, I thought Sarah was really phoning to see if I was really laid up at home, and the aristocratic inquiry was a last resort when I surprised her by picking up the receiver. I do have a devious mind.


Raine McCorquodale, Countess Spencer.

For lunch I made fish and parsley sauce with a touch of garlic. Susan was home at 4:30 and we had a prawn curry. Can you imagine what state my breath is in? However, undaunted, I met Jacq at 7:45 and went to the Yorkshire Rose. From here we went to the Crown at Yeadon (a cold night) and then the Clothiers where we were joined by Sue, Pete, Gus, Chippy, Janet Simon, Dave (Wainwright), Brian Johnson, &c. I was 'grossly over served' with drink, for the want of a better phrase, and smoked several of Jacq's cigarettes.

At 11:30 we all went back to Pine Tops where the spotty faced, teenage Dave made several passes at Jacq saying he'd never liked Cockneys until he met her. To be honest, he was only hanging around to smoke her cigs.

I was legless and threw up in the garden that is dear Papa's pride and joy. I was in a disgusting state. Chippy and Gus were behaving in a riotous fashion.

Lynn and Dave were utter miseries and she stormed off to bed after Dave's departure and insisted on yelling down at me from the top of the stairs about the volume of the record player. Susan and Peter somehow managed to snatch my bed and Jacq and I collapsed on Mum and Dad's bed. I think it was probably 2:30am when things died down.

-=-

20130610

Wednesday April 12, 1978

Snow again, but warm and sunny later on. Work was quite busy and the Budget dominated the papers which is a great bore. I won't notice my extra £1 I can tell you. It (the Budget) may have been Denis Healey's last one. Sir Geoffrey Howe could be at the helm by Christmas.

I am reading (from the library yesterday) the diaries of Samuel Pepys 1659-69. I always imagined the diaries covered more years than this but it seems the poor man went blind after ten years of copiously scribing away about such things as the Great Fire of London. In 1983, if I'm still here, I may well have written more than Mr Pepys, and who knows where it will all end if I'm fit and well in the 2040s. Ooh, I do feel historic.

However, the only exciting thing for me to communicate is that I phoned Jacq at 8. The poor girl's working again tomorrow and we aren't going out until Friday.

Christine phoned me on Monday and mentioned going to Yeadon Fair, but if no vast multitude of friends wish to accompany us I can't see the point of it. Jacq, Christine and I on a roundabout would look really pathetic I think. Miss Sate was very cheerful and seems to enjoy the YWCA with all its grotesque inmates and odd characters. I think she's incredibly brave and valiant.

I was reading a report today in an old copy of The Times (from last week) which stated that in 1941 Sir Winston Churchill in a letter expressed his desire to be cremated. Good heavens! How would we have managed the remainder of the war without him? Thank God they didn't grant him his wish. If Lady Churchill had been burnt at the stake in the 1940s then today Britain would have a marvellous Graham Sutherland portrait of the old boy to admire.


Canaletto ....

In front of the TV this evening. Pete N and Dave B joined us of course. The Duke of Beaufort was on BBC1 talking about Badminton (House) and the horse trials, &c. Dad made his usual cutting remarks about the aristocracy. All you need is a red face, tweed jacket, two acres and a Canaletto and Papa's wrath is immediately aroused.

-=-

20121203

Wednesday November 23, 1977

Saw the Alfred Hitchcock film 'Frenzy' on the BBC. Perhaps it should have been called 'Pansy'. A weak, ridiculous dead loss it was Mr Hitchcock, and I don't care who knows it. What a bloody let down.

Mathieu Molé
Nothing of further interest occurred on this twenty third day of November in the year old Our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Seventy Seven. It's the anniversary of the proclamation of the constitution of Victoria in 1855 and the death of Mathieu Molé , French statesman, also in 1855.

I don't see that point in writing much today other than what I've already done. I don't suppose any of you readers will be upset if I never wrote another line again. But your attitude isn't going to deter me. Where would we be now if Samuel Pepys had listened to his sister, Beryl (who didn't like his writing and thought he was a puff)?

-=-

20120319

Monday April 4, 1977

Thoroughly ordinary sort of day. Just routine at the YP and usual at home. No telephone calls or great news other than the astounding information that the Duke of Beaufort is 77 years old today!

Piss off Michael. You don't half talk a load of shit at times.

                                          POEM
Duke of Beaufort.

Good Old Duke of Beaufort,
You're Seventy Seven today,
with all that luscious parkland,
You're a C*nt with a capital K

(c) MLR.

No, to be honest, I don't like being vulgar. Besides which I'm a leading fan of all dukes of all age and varying fortune. It's quite a while since I made such a silly entry as this. Yes, indeed.

S H I T 


Oh sod it! You've guessed by now I'm doing all this just to waste space. I can't bear to see blank pages in the diary. I bet Evelyn Waugh or Samuel Pepys never did this. Mind you, that's probably why they're famous. Publishers like Michael Joseph or Lord Weidenfeld will be far from enthusiastic by my contribution on this page.

Retire to bed at 12.15am on the morn of my 22nd birthday.

-==-





20100820

Thursday January 8, 1976


I have a half-day and go into town with a Barclaycard that is £1.36 overdrawn. Buy a new suit from Samuel Pepys and get home at about 2pm.

Dad goes out to see his accountant and then takes Mum off to see the Henry Jenkins pub at Kirby Malzeard.

I have the stereo at full blast until John comes in for his tea at 5.30. Mum and Dad are back at 7.30 and are greatly interested in the Henry Jenkins, though they think it's too far away really. Dad is doubtful about our chances of getting the Craven Heifer and besides, they both think the Henry Jenkins is pounds better. We are all going over on Sunday to see it - even Carole and Maria.

I go down to Carole's at 8.30 after meeting Denny in the Hare & Hounds. Tony left her to go off for a meal, and so John befriended her for an hour or so. Carole's Dad's birthday today and he came into the Hare with Mrs P.

Carole and I get the 9.30 bus to Leeds. We're in Cinderella's by 10.30 and have a great time until after 2am. The music was good, and it wasn't crowded at all. We came home by taxi (£3.50) at 2.30 and all was well with the world. Carole wore her new red dress and looked gorgeous. We will have to do this sort of thing much more often.


-==-

20091214

Tuesday December 10, 1974

Edward VIII abdicated 1936. Long day at the YP but enjoyable. As I came back from lunch Janice 'the Formidable' Beaumont, was on the phone from hospital announcing that she'd been delivered of a daughter yesterday morning. Sarah was thrilled to bits, but I can't raise any excitement at Mrs Beaumont's bundle of news. Janice was a bitch, and I can't say I miss her at all.

Meet Lynn and Alison on the bus and we are caught up in a hail storm on Hawksworth Lane. Have liver for tea and then do absolutely nothing for the remainder of the evening.

Whilst shopping in Leeds today I saw a good book entitled 'The Royal House of Windsor'. I'd love to start a book collection. In fact I'm more than tempted. I also got a new diary for next year. Sarah says she's kept a diary since the age of 9. You all know now that I write very little of interest here, but I keep a constant and cronological flow at least. As I've said before I'm no Samuel Pepys.

The YP and I had something in common this morning. An article quoted King Farouk from 1951 saying it was gradually becoming a true fact. I quoted King Farouk yesterday on the same subject of declining and toppling thrones. Clever boy, Michael. Clever boy.

-==-

20091212

Thursday December 5, 1974

Busy day. The bloody telephone didn't cease ringing all day. Nothing of interest to say, but I must say something because it's hardly proper to leave blank pages when ones diary is to consitute a major contribution to the historical, social, and literary knowledge of this, the 20th century. OK, we all agree I'm no Samuel Pepys, or John Evelyn or even 'Chips' Channon, but what do you expect from a comprehensive school educated creature who never set foot in Harrow or had Princess Marina for a godmother?

See TV and Monty Python. Nothing of vital interest. So I'll be saying goodnight to you all. I write this journal as though I'm addressing a party of OAPs at the local Darby & Joan. But it's not my fault.

-==-

Sunday March 25, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn British Summer Time begins 3rd Sunday in Lent Bacon sandwiches and the Sunday Telegraph. Fuss about the Queen's visit to ...