Friday January 29, 1982

 Ally, feeling rough, stayed in bed after my departure at 7:45. I took a half day and was home at 12:45 and climbed into bed. ______. Downstairs for beans on toast and crumpets, for lunch. We watched a 1942 film starring Vincent Price, and then a Sherlock Holmes film starring Basil Rathbone, but fighting the Nazis and saving Britain from the clutches of the Hun.

Not my cup of tea.

Later we had fish and chips, and Ally, feeling better, got stuck into a 'Miss Marple' tale. I sat with knotted brow quite over-faced by the glut of new book purchases. Which one should I read? For some reason I cannot get into the Hobbit. I don't think Tolkein is my cup of tea, but I don't suppose I have given him a chance.

Mum says that Tony is forming his own business with a similarly redundant colleague. Have I said that Tony phoned me on Wednesday about placing an advert in the paper?

The forthcoming royal birth has been spoiled for me by the coming debate on the order of succession to the Crown which next month may take away the right of the eldest son to succeed to the Crown of his forebears. We are not in Scandinavia for God's sake. The succession to the throne has only been tampered with or diverted in times of great national crisis. In 1688 following the flight of James II, and the death of Queen Anne to secure the protestant succession in the person of George of Hanover. To further amend the succession now, at the whim of a jumped up Labour MP, will only detract from the magic and mystique of the monarchy and lower the whole institution giving it a presidential facade.

-=-