Showing posts with label uk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label uk. Show all posts

20120114

Tuesday January 4, 1977


Please forgive the silly way I've begun my 1977 journal. In future I will really try to act properly and do my best to be informative whenever possible. Thank you. Oh, by the way, will these volumes be priceless one day like the papers of Mr Scrope Davies? Agreed, I'm not a friend of the likes of Lord Byron or John Keats, but will Chris Monckton do? He is the heir to a peerage, you know.

What a day! Nasty and thoroughly boring. Home at 5.15 to find Martyn and a friend of his being entertained by Lynn. I inform him of the holiday situation [news which I received from Miss Akroyd today] and we plan to 'arrange' a meeting later this week. ____. Must contact the Stockport contingent. The girls in the office are already booking up dates so I'll have to rush.

Lynn
Did I say some abominable things about Miss Mather yesterday? If you, dear reader, are by any chance of fate the progency of myself and the much maligned lady - do forgive me. Your mother doesn't deserve such foul criticism. We can all say some unforgivable things at times.

Lynne and I went wild tonight. Starting off at Guiseley library where I paid a 48p fine it just got wilder and wilder. We sped to the Commercial until 9.30 and although I'm something of a drinker I'm very much afraid that two pints of Stella Artois later I was half pissed. We went on to the Hare. Judith was holding court in the lounge of the latter mentioned tavern and at the first available opportunity she accosted me and enquired: "What about the Pink Panther?" I shall have to ring her and discuss this tete a tete in greater detail. It was fun whispering and carrying on whilst Lynne was encased upon the 'loo' or whatever term is fashionable nowadays. Home in a tipsy state at 11 o'clock. Zzzz ....


-==-

20120113

Sunday January 2, 1977


2nd after Christmas. Mama and Papa's birthday. Need I give their respective ages again? I'm sure that by now you're all aware of the numerical rigmarole so why should I bother? The events of the day are not very noteworthy. I ring Lynne at Thornton-le-Dale and she isn't very communicative. Who cares? [I wish I could get out of this habit of asking rhetorical questions every other sentence].



Marita Fountain
MM: he and Marita will be married ....


David came at 7.25pm and the two of us went to Rawdon for Marita and then on for MM. Where do you think we were going to spend Sunday evening? Would you believe ten pin bowling? Yes. Bowling of all things. To Leeds went the four of us and we spent three or four hours pleasurably bowling. Yes bowling. What more can I say? From here we go to the True Briton Inn at Chapel Allerton [?] where we discuss holidays. David tells me horror stories of the collapse of Christine B's latest romance on New Year's Eve. The poor demented child! I will have to contact her and offer what assistance I can muster.

Back to MM's for coffee until 1.30am. He and Marita will be married as sure as tomorrow's Monday.

-==-

Saturday December 18, 1976




Lynne and I go into Leeds at 12.30 so that I could buy her the long awaited dress I was supposed to be purchasing for Christmas. When I say we looked at forty eight million dresses I am not exaggerating. Why do men have to put up with it? By 5.30 I have a thumping headache and no patience. No suitable dresses are to be found, and so I go to Denton's and put down a £6 deposit on a garnet single stone ring. Will pay the remaining £10 next week. Lynne bought me a gold chain and a bottle of 'Eau Savage' after-shave. Buy the remaining Christmas presents and feel very relieved on the way home. In fact, the journey out of Leeds was one which can only be compared to the release of some aged criminal after spending 47 years in penal servitude. No doubt Rudolf Hess will experience that sensation one day - if he's lucky.

Back home for tea. Mum and Dad go to Jim and Molly's 30th wedding anniversary party at Acacia House. Lynne and I go down to the Hare. Speak to Judith who is working in the bar. She even bought us a drink. She is becoming fanciable indeed.

To Pete [Lazenby's] at 11 o'clock with a bottle of white wine [£2.20]. A great evening. Tony, Mandy, John Cameron and Jill come. Stand in the kitchen until 3am. Denise arrived _______. I didn't see the sordid 'do' but had a report from Jill._____. Stephanie Ferguson mistakes me for 'John Rhodes', the twin brother of 'the drip who works at the YP'. They laugh when I say Michael is my 'twindentical' brother. Don't see all that much of Peter and the evening seems to be over very quickly really. Back home to catch Mum helping a drunken Papa into the house. Bed after 4am.

-==-

Thursday December 16, 1976



Snow and shit. Mum had her Christmas dinner at her work today and so when, at 6.30pm, she hadn't arrived home to make the tea I began frying sausages and boiling baked beans. Maria rings to say she is holding Mama hostage at a secret address and she will only be released if I pay up £6m in cash. The only thing I can think of is the IMF. Will they provide the necessary cash to free the old lady?

Lynne comes up at 7 o'clock and after sampling my cooking we go down to the Hare & Hounds. We meet Jean [Holmes] and that dumb friend of hers along with a couple of young police constables. They leave at 9.45. I do like Jean, a sweet almost desirable being.

Oh God! I've made an error. An error indeed. Lynne and I having passed a pleasant evening at the pub, which went without a hitch. Miss Phillips was in with Miss [Naomi] Downing and Lynne was a bit peeved that Carole completely ignored her. But to get back to my nasty error. You know I don't embarrass easily, don't you? Yes, well I'm embarrassed, red in the face and shitting myself at the story I'm about to relate. On the way home from this pleasant evening I accidentally referred to Miss Mather as "Carole". I was horror-struck. Lynne said: "For Christ sake, she's been on your mind all night," and I replied "yes, I'm aware of that". Haunted - and for what reason? Bed at 11 with this embarrassing thing on my mind. SHIT!

-==-

20111202

Saturday December 4, 1976



Wake up at 10.30 to what must be one of the coldest days I've yet experienced. And you know how I rarely moan about the weather. Bloody freezing! Hangover.

Lynne is harping on about going to Leeds which doesn't instill much excitement in one at all really, and the radio announcing a further drop in the pound due to the death of Benjamin Britten only makes matters worse. Almost as if by an act of God we find her car is incapacitated. I, being the only other resident in the house can of course do nothing to assist and so we have to await the return of Papa from the Cash and Carry at 12.40. He diagnoses battery bother and I suggest we go straight to Thornton-le-Dale without a moment's hesitation. This we do harrassed by snow storms as we passed through York. The journey proved uneventful other than a slight encounter nay skirmish with revolting peasants in Malton, which was soon quelled.

Nothing astounding to report at the Mather residence. Lynne and I go to Pickering for a few drinks and return at 11. Endure one of Michael Parkinson's revolting interviews. The man is obsessed about sex. He doesn't even draw the line at human copulation either. Apes, plankton, they all come under his perverted scrutiny. Bed at 12.30 - 1am after enduring 'Pomp & Circumstance' with Peter and Sir Edward Elgar. He is awfully sarcastic about ___________________ and insists he wants to venture to 'better places than Ibiza' next year. I'm going to San Antonio whether they're interested or not. Martyn must be made to see my point of view.

-==-

Sunday April 1, 1984

 4th Sunday in Lent Mothering Sunday New Moon Sunny, bright, &c. Smothering Sunday. All Fool's Day. Busy. Rob came and so too did th...