Monday November 17, 1980

Lady Diana: fever grows.

_. Lady Diana Spencer fever grows. I saw her tonight for the first time on TV. The six o'clock news on the BBC showed the poor girl besieged outside her flat, bombarded with questions as she fumbled for her car keys, eventually driving away beaming all over her face. The poor girl. I think this really means business. The morning papers say she was at Sandringham over the weekend. But as a note of caution let us not forget that Sandringham is her birthplace and home, and she has close ties to the Queen. Another bloody red herring? I am trying to view the situation objectively. Mum says they'll be engaged by Thursday, but Dad's opinion is that it will never happen because the Prince of Wales is a confirmed bachelor. Obviously, Dad doesn't know what he's talking about.

YP busy. Carol J left 'with a cold' at 12:30. That is the last we'll see of her until pay day. A new boy on the YP staff, I discover, is the son of the ghastly former Home Secretary, Merlyn Rees, a Leeds MP. We are really scraping the barrel these days. On the subject of MPs it was interesting to see Sir Harold Wilson speaking on 'Panorama' this evening. His opinion is that the Labour party fell to pieces when he resigned the leadership. He described Peter Shore as his 'poodle' and scoffed about Michael Foot. Harold tends to regard himself as a god, I think.

Mum and Dad went to Auntie Mabel's from 6:30-11:30. I half-heartedly watched TV. Lady Diana was on every news bulletin. I like her pleasant demeanour and obvious good mannered gentleness.

I phoned Ally. She was washing and brewing. I offered to buy her a dress. Auntie Hilda phoned for John's address. She is sending out Silver wedding invitations.

To bed at 12:15.

-=-