Sunday June 24, 1979

To bed at breakfast time. Slept until I was rudely awakened by the phone at 2pm. Unfortunately I couldn't get to pick up in time and so the identity of the caller remains a mystery. Both Ally and I are hideously hung over and in no fit state to receive visitors, but this is what is inflicted upon us in the shape of Martyn and Therese. He brought my ring back, now embellished with one solitary garnet for which I paid him £5. __________. It was a very uncomfortable visit. The blinding pain in my head didn't help. I wanted some Anadin pills, but the child lock on the bottle got the better of me.

John phoned. He says the baby looks like a Macdonald, has long legs, and no eye brows. She is to be called Catherine Elizabeth Mary. Maria's Mum, Molly, is really Mary Catherine, and Maria's sister is Elizabeth, and so there you have the connection. Jim and Molly have travelled up to Dumfries, taking JPH with them.

At 10:15 Maria phoned me from her hospital bed. She chatted for a while and sounded fine. She told Sue that she wants to be back in Stranraer next week. To bed at 1am after seeing a Peter Lorre film from 1930 about a Berlin child-killer. Quite boring really. Ally is quite adamant that she's going out with Eammon Burke on Tuesday. I am bloody furious.

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Saturday June 23, 1979

John phoned and woke us at 10am with the news that Maria had given birth to a baby girl at 6:30 this morning. Both are well. The little mite weighed in at four and a half pounds. He was very tired and overjoyed. I have a tiny, little niece!

Phoned Auntie Hilda who says she is going out to buy pink wool. I tried to speak to Auntie Mabel but got no response.

A wet thundery day. Mum and Dad phoned at lunchtime. I exclaimed: "Well, hello, granddad". He was so excited and had no idea the baby had arrived. "Come on then, which is it?" Mum was thrilled but so frustrated to be down in Devon.

Sue and Pete went out at 8:30 and at 9 Ally and I went to the New Inn at Headingley, and then the Regent at Chapel Allerton. Jacq was in the Regent with her new fellow house mate and Sarah was with Richard Burke, Carol J and Marilyn Wheeler, &c. We went back to Jacq's where I spoke to Cheryl up from London. She began lecturing me about relationships and asked me not to be put off by her, or afraid of her! ____________. By about 4am things got a bit silly and Jacq poured beer all over me. _____________. Paul calmed us down and the dance music on the record player was replaced by Debussy's Clair De Lune, the 'Wedding March' by Mendelsohn, and the bloody Elizabethan Serenade for Chrissake. Eammon Burke was chatting up Ally and invited her out next Tuesday. He told her that her brown eyes were the most beautiful he'd ever seen. Pass the sick bag.

The sun was shining brilliantly by 8am, and we were still drinking. Paul, Jacq, Ally and I were discussing something now lost in the mist of alcohol. A neighbour, clad in the regalia of a bus conductor, came over and told us to keep the noise down. Perhaps he'd been watching us with binoculars. I had now changed into a 'House of Holroyd' shirt because my own clothes had been destroyed by Jacq's fury. She went up to bed and Ally and I drove home.

Friday June 22, 1979

Out with Ally, Sue and Pete to the Crown at Yeadon, the Dog and Gun at Apperley Bridge, and the Commercial at Esholt. Ally is miserable and puts it down to a common female affliction. The first two hostelries were drab but at the Commercial we relaxed and laughed. The hilarity was due to the amount of booze we'd put down. At 10:45 we returned to Pine Tops to watch a Monty Python movie from 1972. They ate takeaways from the Chinese and I wept like a baby at the antics of John Cleese & co. Afterwards we clowned around in the garden, or perhaps I should say Pete and I did, and our frivolity resulted in me lobbing the refuse from the Chinese takeaway into the garden next door. Peter rolled around laughing, but Susan screamed and shouted like dear Mama would do. After our garden frolic Sue dragged Pete up to bed and Ally and I fell into the dining room with Rachmaninov, Stevie Wonder and the Three Degrees. We found a bottle of something called 'Ginora' which we drank, and then discussed our relationship. ______________. Once again the tittle tattle of others is spoiling my life.

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Thursday June 21, 1979

Overcast and damp. Mum phoned me at the office to say they are going to Devon for about a week, and then probably go on to Scotland to see John and Maria. Maria phoned John this morning to say she was having labour pains again. Meanwhile, JPH is at Molly and Jim's for some unspecified period of time.

Had a bath at 5:30 and an hour later Ally and I bombed over the moor to Burley-in-Wharfedale to have dinner with Lynn and David. Ally produced a bottle of wine and we ate like starving fiends. Afterwards we walked over to inspect Dave's allotment and to see them both inspecting the potato plants and clucking hens was a tonic. It goes to show that life can still be happy, simple and uncomplicated and not at all devious and dirty as is so often portrayed on the centre court at Wimbledon or in the Old Bailey. From the allotment we marched to the Red Lion for a couple of drinks, but due to our pathetic financial status we couldn't go full-out and cast caution to the wind as we so often do. Lynn is beaming and glowing like a miner's lamp. Back to Lawn Road for coffee and discuss the ghastly topic of house buying. I'll never be able to afford even a humble garage, let alone a crumbling semi-detached. Home at 11:30pm.

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