Friday May 4, 1979

_. To Ivory Towers on West End Lane (Horsforth). Delia howled with excitement as I sat on the edge of her bed informing her of Jeremy Thorpe's defeat in Devon and the Tory revival in the land. We ate scrambled eggs and drank the fizz. At 8:30am, in brilliant sunshine, Delia drove Sarah and I to the YP. Kathleen was dumbfounded and very nasty about the Tory victory. She didn't approve of me wearing a blue rosette in the office. Library staff, she thinks, ought to be impartial. Blimey, I'm not the fucking Duke of Edinburgh.

After about half an hour I began quite seriously to lose my powers of speech and vision, and a total inability to type. Sarah took me out at 12 and I slumped, almost unconscious, on a park bench in Park Square. At 2 Kathleen realised I was beyond hope of recovery and sent me home. She wanted the flash of my blue rosette out of the office for sure. I got a bus and slept all the way to Guiseley.

At home I focused only briefly on the telly to see Margaret Thatcher leaving Buckingham Palace as our first woman prime minister, and at 4pm I staggered to bed. Four o'clock in the afternoon and I succumb like an eighty year-old geriatric! Lay in bed with the soothing paralysis creeping upon me and contemplating the idea of a Conservative government. My last act of the day was to let out a burst of laughter at the thought of what Mrs T will do to those revolting trade unionists who get out of hand.

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