Wednesday January 26, 1977

Pissed up indeed. Lynn Rhodes (my dear sister) fancied going out for a jar or two with me in the absence of Mr Baker, and I readily agreed. We caught a bus to the Hare and immediately entered into the spirit of the thing. Simon (Denise's work-mate) and his lady friend with the name that escapes me, sat with us and he was 'eyeing' Lynn all over. He thought I was indulging in a bit of  the old 'One-Two-Three-Knees-Up-Knickers-Off-Blossom-'Op-into-Bed-with-Me-My-Old-Fruit' and seemed saddened when I explained that Lynn is my sister. CB was in. She wasn't on form. Where was that famous humour that brought tears of joy to the eyes of thousands at many of the London Palladium matinees? It was because she was driving. The curse of the 20th century is the motor car. The prime example of the 'evil' wrought by this innovation is Christine Braithwaite.

The Trav....

Martyn came into the Hare and after depositing Lynn on the last bus at 10.45 or so the two of us went to the Stoney Lea at Ilkley with Karen, his sister. What a ruddy dead loss! Only six of us in the damned place and at midnight the bar closed and we were out on the street. This did not deter us. With Andy Dale and Chris (his next-door neighbour who was in the police force) we went on to Il Trovatore, or El Lavatori, or whatever, which was once the Minstrel's Gallery. I demolished the best part of £7 and ended up in such a state. God. Was I gone? Blotto. Slept in Martyn's lounge from 4am to 7.30am. Please don't ask me how I felt.

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Thursday December 23, 1976

What a bloody laugh. Lynne beetles her way up the lane at 7.30 and we take Sue, Pete N, & Mr & Mrs Nason to the Craiglands [hotel] in Ilkley before dropping off Martyn's 'things' at his residence. Miss Mather and I then motored to Neville's Wine Bar [she prefers Neville's to the Vineyard for some ridiculous reason] and after putting away a bottle of wine I suggest going to Stuart's flat for my jeans and pullover. An innocent enough suggestion you may think - and it certainly was meant to be one, but Oh dear, just see what occurred. 

We found Stu and Andrew attempting to clean up in readiness for Mr & Mrs Walker's visit for the festive season, but I gave them leave to crack open a bottle of Scotsmac. One or two bottles later Stuart, far from being a sober manager of W.H. Smith and Sons Ltd, happened accidentally to refer to Lynne as 'Carole' - a name not unfamiliar to Miss Mather's ear-holes. With this slight she leapt from her chair with the words: 'Come on, Michael. We're going.' With a flourish she swept from the room like Lady Bracknell. I, of course, had no intention of leaving and remained firm and defiant throughout. Minutes later she's sat in her squat little car beneath the balcony of W.H. Smith's, and I proceeded to give a Mussolini-like lecture from above. Then she was gone into the darkness, not unlike [Stanley] Baldwin's departure from Fort Belvedere in 1936. 

A much warmer atmosphere was circulating in the upper chambers of that bastion of book selling. In fact the mood of we three lads was not unreminiscent of the aura circulating in the private suite of Adolf Hitler on the night he made himself chancellor of the Third Reich. [That's enough dictators, I think]. Minutes later, Stuart, Andrew and I were at the Stoney Lea where we made merry until 2am. Andrew Walker Esq pinched someones cigarette lighter, which wasn't very nice, but things like this do happen when one is as pissed as he was. The theft of a lighter is a much nicer crime than say raping three nuns in the rear of taxi - or is it? [By the time you, dear reader, sit reading this rape may well have been legalised].

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