Tuesday September 22, 1981

Bassey: Goldfinger.

 _. A cheerful day at the YP, and not without incident. Shazzo, looking thinner, bounded into the office with tales of horror and hardship as a captive, for two months, in a seething Turkish city. She suffered serious abuse at the hands of her Turkish husband. Locked in a room with other women, and a record player, the only English voice she heard was that of Shirley Bassey singing 'Goldfinger'. In order to keep sane she sat in the squalid apartment, fingers in ears, singing along with Shirley. Her husband, Mr Kocq, is not coming back to Britain. He was here illegally anyway. Poor Shazzo is seeing a solicitor on Thursday. One can never tell just how much of Shazzo's narrative is genuine, but all the same she wraps it up and presents it very convincingly. She's a latter day Charlotte Bronte, if you ask me.

Home at 6. Spent two hours preparing dinner with Ally. Jill and Tim, the honeymooners, came to dine at 8. Homemade mushroom soup, grilled steak with chips, peas, corn, leek, fried mushrooms, cheesecake, chocolate cake, cream. Lutomer Riesling. They are a marvellous couple, and highly suited, and so 'easy going'.

Bed at 1am. Mum and Dad are at Cavaillon.

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Monday September 21, 1981

 _. I don't like Mondays. It was a hardship saying goodbye to Ally. Is this the way our life is going to be until I'm 65? Working or sleeping?

Gloom at the YP. Sarah had a face like a wet weekend. 'Mrs Slocombe' has returned from her Geneva sojourn with the ex-President Jimmy Carter look-alike. Mrs S looks very pale and I suspect she will have indentations from bed springs deep into her back.

Home at 6. Pork chops. Kitten was a hive of industry tonight. Washing, ironing, bed changing.

Foot: crutches

News: What is all this fuss about the squabble for the deputy leadership of the Labour party? When the victor is announced what will it mean? The title 'deputy leader' is worthless anyway. It's Michael Foot's job that's at stake if you ask me. To see the old boy staggering around Moscow on crutches is pitiful. Saw on the 9 o'clock news that the TGWU is to back Wedgwood Benn and not Healey. Healey was in front but is now 'neck and neck' with Benn. Laughable.

Mum and Dad are at Rully, in the Saône-et-Loire, tonight. Lucky buggers. Bed at 11 after a Michael Caine epic. Ally was collapsed over a Agatha Christie.

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Sunday September 20, 1981

 _. 14th Sunday after Trinity

We said goodbye to Mum and Dad at about 9pm last night. They left for the continent at 7am, staying tonight at Dunkirk. It all shrieks of the Second World War and not a holiday. 

We slept until about 11 and had a long, leisurely luncheon. Roast beef, flat Yorkshire puds, &c.

Hardy as Churchill.

Jim and Margaret dropped in at 3pm with details of an advert they want to place in the EP.

Did nothing but watch TV and listen to the radio. I cannot decide whether I like the latest Churchill drama. It's hard to imagine Winnie and Clem tucked up in bed together. They are too recent. It's perhaps easier to see Queen Anne in bed, or the Duke of Wellington or Lord Kitchener [who according to Lady Diana Cooper, liked to be flogged by boys], but not Winston.

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Saturday September 19, 1981

 _. Sunny and blustery. Was splashing in the bath at 8:30.  We were ready for 11. Ally, quite stunning, in her tulip dress. We had a photo shoot in the garden. The neighbours, behind their nets, envious of our high social life. Our comings and goings have brought a touch of Edwardian splendour to this quiet Lidget Green enclave.

Met Mum, Dad, Sue & Pete at noon in the Farmers Arms, Thornbury, and went on to Pudsey Parish Church at 12:45, overtaking Uncle Tony and the bride in their stately Rolls Royce on the way. Wedding was at 1. The vicar, obviously going for the world record, had them married by 1:15 and out onto the lawn for a lengthy photographic session with a fat fellow in a demob suit. In church Tim shook throughout, slightly more worried about the rupture in the Elmer family and where it might lead, than his performance before the vicar. Auntie Mabel wailed throughout. It was perhaps the hymn 'O Perfect Love' that did it.

The receeption was held at Pudsey Civic Hall. Baby Frances took a lot of the attention. She is perhaps one of the finest babies I have seen. I know the current baby is always the finest, but she is a wonder.

Back to Wilsby at 5. No punch ups. Back to the Civic Hall at 7:30, in pouring rain, for a party until midnight. A vast and merry throng too numerous to mention. Joined by Dave L. We sat with Lynn and Dave but I cannot recall any of the conversation. You know how I forget things after a long day with heavy spirits. Home wet at 12. We were invited back to Wilsby but thought the better of it.

[Photographs to accompany the entry to follow]

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