Wednesday February 18, 1976

Old Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone is 93 next week and I'm hoping she'll last out until June next year because if she does she'll be the oldest living member of the British Royal Family. I think I'm right in saying that Princess Alice is the only surviving holder of the VA (the Order of Victoria & Albert) which hasn't been conferred since Queen Victoria passed over.

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Tuesday February 17, 1976

A wet damp day again. Carole goes to hospital for a check-up on her kidneys this morning and we meet in Leeds at 1 o'clock again. These ventures out a lunchtimes are rare, and it's weird going out two days in a row!

Things in the news: Angola, Angola and Angola. All we hear about on the TV news and in the newspapers is of the struggles going on in this futile African country where Cubans, Russians and ex-convict British mercenaries are killing each other for a piece of territory that's about as big as Wembley stadium. It doesn't make much sense to me and I think most people are confused by it all too. Ian Smith won't be too happy about it in neighbouring Rhodesia and bloody revolution will undoubtedly follow in that fascist colony now.

See in the EP that Basil Hume, Abbot of Ampleforth is the new Archbishop of Westminster and the next (only) English cardinal. As head of the Roman Catholics in England he'll conduct important ceremonies like, for instance, the marriage of Mr John Philip Rhodes with Miss Maria Christine Macdonald next month.

Carole rings tonight and so too does Christine White just to make sure we know the arrangements for Friday nights excursion to York. Carole's communication was just a gosspipy one. She has a way of aggravating me on the phone (don't ask me why) and I much prefer to speak to her in the flesh. She did say that she will not go for a hospital check-up again and nothing I say will deter her from this point of view. However, the gruesome activities they get up to with her blood samples made me feel sick just hearing about them.

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Monday February 16, 1976

Bitter cold day but sunny all the same. At work by 8.30 and manage to finish everything by about 1 o'clock. Carole rang me at 11.15 and asked if I want to meet her in town for lunch. We meet at one on Commercial Street and buy a few bags of crisps and I have a tongue sandwich from Lewis's, and we go sit in the part near the church opposite the Merrion Centre. We laugh and throw food for the pigeons and clown around like eight year-olds. I have to be back at work at about 2pm and she has to meet the Dowager Lady Phillips at C & A - who is suddenly conversing with her daughter again after what seems like weeks of silence and animosity. I bump into Auntie Eleanor and cousin Jackie whilst leaving C & A. Auntie was her usual sarcastic self and Jackie tells me she's to be a bridesmaid for a friend of hers on March 13. ________________.

Home at 5.20 and tell Mum about my meeting. Weddings appear to be at the bottom of most family disputes & squabbles and I think that when my turn comes along, if ever, I'll run away to Gretna Green and have it done with little ceremony and with no aunts or uncles to be seen anywhere.

Have salad for tea and leap into the bath. John rushes off to decorate a bedroom at the Macdonald seat & I marvel at his vitality. Since the day his intended marriage was made public he's gone completely scatty. Out every night visiting priests and painting bedroom ceilings in nice pale yellow for the little bundle of joy expected in September. I'm glad I'm not in his shoes. Fatherhood is all very well, but I'd like to be grey and smoking a pipe by then.

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Sunday February 15, 1976

Septuagesima. Woke up at 11.30 with a hangover. I must have been pissed last night.____.

I don't like the way Christine treats Carole at times. No love is ever lost between them. One thing that's particularly grating is the way Christine insists on calling Carole "Fanny" in a very cold manner.

Marlene, Frank & the children come round after lunch and they bring John a little engagement gift.

Carole rang at 2pm and we went to see 'The Return of the Pink Panther' at Leeds with Susan and Peter at 5pm. The film is hilariously funny. Peter Sellers' accent is brilliant. We got a bus home - the the White Cross - and the four of us devoured fish and chips at Harry Ramsden's. Carole felt as though one of her headaches was coming on and I deposited her on a bus homeward. I returned home in a descending fog.

Poor Carole is still having parent trouble and it all stems from the business about me being 'tight-fisted'. The Phillipses are funny buggers and I have long harboured the opinion that Lady Phillips is deranged and psycopathic, but it's hardly my place to go into the old hag's faults here in these pages. She is so horrible that she would in fact make a perfect mother-in-law.

Bed at 12 o'clock midnight.

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Saturday February 14, 1976

Valentine's Day. Get up at 11.30 and give Carole her Valentine's card in person. Mine hasn't arrived and she's worried about the whereabouts of it. It arrives in the afternoon. I also received a card from Christine, which is a birthday card for a one-year old and it has me in stitches. Get no others, but it's two better than last year at least which proved Valentinecardless.

Mum and Dad go out after lunch and John messes about with his car whilst Maria, Lynn and Sue go bridesmaid dress purchasing. Mrs Macdonald has taken it upon herself to decide what everybody is wearing at the forthcoming wedding.

Down to the Hare tonight after collecting Carole from Oakridge Castle. Mrs Phillips is a bit ratty about Carole not going home last night but at least she's speaking which is a gigantic step towards re-establishing diplomatic relations.

After the Hare Carole, Christine B and Chris and I go to Bingley and then up to Oakwood Hall which is a laugh. I get rather pissed. The four of us pile back to Pine Tops for coffee and a riotous session follows in the lounge where CB takes a fancy to Mum's new sheepskin rug. Mama is roused and shouts down saying "it sounds like a fairground". Not another word was spoken.

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Friday February 13, 1976

Friday the Thirteenth. I'm not superstitious at all but just thought I'd mention it.

After a hard day at the office I find refuge and solace at the Hare & Hounds. John takes me down at 7.30 and I stand with Stephen Barstow, who hadn't heard of John's insignificant item of news. I do down to collect Carole. The Dowager Lady Phillips is on her usual sharp form and tries to make me feel small, in her usual smiling fashion, saying that John looks years older than me & is obviously more mature. I agree entirely with her which throws her off track. Leave for the Hare with Carole by my side.

Chris, Christine, Peter M, Andy & Linda, Carol Smith and a slim-line Christine D are out in force and a good night is had by all.

Peter ascertained his view that we should still go on holiday together despite John and Chris backing down. We will have a good time together, despite Christine B's jokes, and two weeks in the sun will be shear heaven. It's something to look forward to on these shitty, cold, freezing February nights.

Carole and I creep into the tap room for a traditional quick one and at eleven I don't want her to leave me and so I drag her onto a bus with me and bring her home.

Sit with Sue and Pete watching a useless Vincent Price film in which he was transformed into an Edward Heath-like fly and flitted about strangling undertakers. It was in black and white too, which didn't add to the excitement one bit.

Everyone deserted us at about midnight and what followed was a cosy little three hour session on the good old settee. The things that article of furniture could tell if only it had a tongue beneath one of its cushions. Dad disturbed us at 3am coming in for his supper.

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Thursday February 12, 1976

A wet bright day. At the YP Kathleen has a phone call to say the 1975 edition of Burke's Peerage is waiting to be collected at WH Smith's. I'm round there like a shot and return with the bound volume where, to my horror, I see that it is in fact a revised edition of the 1970 volume, andf even smaller because the royal section now forms a separate book. I think it's a disgrace, and at £38 it certainly isn't worth it. However, before taking it back I photostated the supplement in the front of the volume listing all the peers who have died since 1970, and proceed to amend our tatty volume myself. I then re-wrapped the book and took it back to Smith's. Devious I know.

Elton John is coming to the Grand Theatre Leeds on April 29-30 and Sarah, with her boyfriend Alan, Carol and her sweetheart, Eileen and Michael and Carole and I are going along to lend our support. Tickets are £3 each and we all payed today to get it over with. I'm not an absolute Elton John fanatic but I am curious to see how he performs on stage. The girls in the office will be clamouring to see Carole, because she's always been a mysterious voice on the other end of the phone. They'll be more interested in Carole than in Elton John.

Get home at 5.30 for fish and chips and chocolate cake and gallons of tea.

The Henry Jenkins deal is going through with great promise. Barkers accountants and valuers are working around the clock and we'll have a decision in two weeks.

John and I go down to the Hare at 7.30 and when he goes to Maria's half an hour later I go to Carole's. We have a romantic evening in the Hare and spend an hour in the tap room where all the locals seem to know us now. She really is cheerful and happy.

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