Wednesday January 20, 1982

 Fog, but warm fog. Kissed [Ally] goodbye at 7:30 after boiled eggs and toast. I so wanted to stay at home in bed.

Rail strike. The buses are full of ladies in fur coats and businessmen in sheepskin jackets and deer stalker hats, who usually journey by train. I resent imposters. Really, the people who always travel by train should refuse to work when the railwaymen strike.

Buckton: moody.

Papers dull. Full of articles about rape. The Prince and Princess of Wales have been granted joint armorial bearings incorporating the prince's shield and Garter buckle and the Spencer shells - cockleshells, I think. The press seems to be letting them 'rest in peace' since the Buckingham Palace conference asking Fleet Street to 'lay off'. I haven't seen a photo of Diana in the papers since. Poor Lord Spencer is having to sell paintings from Althorp to pay the death duties of the late earl, who died seven years ago.

Steve Burnip has genealogical contacts in Leeds and on my behalf has made enquiries about the Bramley parish registers and things look good. Edward III here we come!

Billy, God bless him, is 42 to-day. _______________. 

It took two hours to get home from Leeds thanks to Ray Buckton's ridiculous moodiness. Had spaghetti and chips, of all things. We are [illegible] on the lines of Coronation Street.

Read 'Key to Rebecca' and sat in bed reading it until the end, at 12:30.

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Tuesday January 19, 1982

Over 40 degrees F again. YP for 9, and took a 2 hours lunch break and went to the Reference Library to search for Wilson ancestors on the 1861 census [April 13, 1861]. After an hour I found I found my great-great grandparents William Wilson and Betty, his wife, resident at Chapel Fold, Pudsey [now long since demolished I fear]. William, head of the family, is 43, a woollen slubber, and was born at Bramley, circa 1817/1818. Betty, aged 45, was born at Pudsey circa 1815/1816. Of the nine children that we know of from Hilda's family Bible, only six are listed on the census. Mary, aged 16, is a worsted weaver, James, aged 12, is a factory worker, Rhoda, aged 10, is a factory worker, John, aged 8 [my great-grandfather], is a scholar, then Martha, aged 4, and Martha Elizabeth, aged 1. All the children are Pudsey-born. I felt very emotional discovering my roots, quite choked thinking of those poor infant factory workers. Without much effort I have managed to trace the Wilsonsn back to the beginning of the 19th century. It's piquant that my Wilson and Rhodes great-great grandfathers were both Bramley born.

From the office I phoned Bramley Parish Church. They don't have the parish records for 1817/1818. Sod it.

Home at 6:15. Fog. Liver. Bath. Out in the fog at 8 to cousin Jackie's, at Amberley Street, Barker End. Joined by 2 friends and then the new boyfriend, Barry. He is employed at A. Baldwin & Co, who have dealings with the AHA. Out to the Coachman's pub for a few pints of Tetley's - weird really. Our first visit to a pub in 1982.A good night. Home at 12:30.

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