Friday January 11, 1980

_. I wasn't feeling well yesterday, but today I felt much worse. It was enough to give me the incentive to phone in sick to the office at 8:30. In good old YP library tradition they didn't believe my story. The girls in that office would have, in a previous life, made good henchmen for Thomas Cromwell.

Delia....

I spoke to Sarah who laughed about the Lit lunch. Delia, she says, told Harold Wilson that he is 'miserable', and asked him: 'Don't you ever smile?'

I cleared up some of the mess from last night and then took to my bed. Within ten minutes Delia was on the phone. It was obviously a put up job by Sarah to check that I was at home. I think Cromwell's henchmen decided collectively that I was in fact lodging at Ally's. I had Delia's version of her put down of the former prime minister. I climbed back into bed chortling to myself about the cunning of my work colleagues.

Slept until 2pm after which I felt restored to full health. Ally phoned.

Sue and Pete went to Lynn & Dave's. I watched the telly with Mum and Dad.

Here's something amazing. Nicholas Knatchbull, the grandson of Earl Mountbatten of Burma, who died with him, has left an estate of £770,000. He was fourteen and the youngest of six children. The enormity of this sum is a clue to the vast fortune of Lord Louis. His will, like all royal wills, is private. The money of course comes from the late Edwina Mountbatten, who inherited millions from her grandfather, Sir Ernest Cassel, and obviously it will have grown down the years.

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