Tuesday March 2, 1982

 YP tolerable. It is reported that Kathleen is looking at getting an Irish Wolfhound to help her and her 75 year-old mother recover from the loss of Mr Rainford.

Geoff Hemingway gave me a £10 postal order for tips to the EP over recent months that he says he's overlooked. I can think of none. I drew up the joint family tree of of the Prince and Princess of Wales this morning. It shows their common descent from Henry VII and includes Diana's line from Charles I, Charles II and James II. Prince Charles of course has no lines of descent from those Stuart monarchs. [He is descended only from James VI & I]. I'm tickled pink. It's going to dominate the EP of March 30 when TRH visit St Gemma's and other locations in Leeds. It will be Diana's last big engagement before her accouchement.

Home at 6. We sat and ate coconut and watched Humphrey Bogart [also a distant cousin of the Princess too] in the Maltese Falcon.

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Monday March 1, 1982

 To the YP for 8:30. I put Christopher's birth in the YP and EP announcements for tomorrow. Mum phoned to say that Sue isn't now going to Otley [hospital] until later, and so I went to see her at 2. Bless her, she was all packed like a refugee awaiting the ambulance. Christopher is 'prettier' and less swollen, and certainly 'bouncing'. Sue is totally captivated. The baby looked better in his going out clothes because the nightshirt supplied by Hyde Terrace is a grey, objectionable thing, which made him look like an orphan.  Sue says she hopes that people will call the baby by his full name and not 'Chris'. I fear she's on a loser here. The name, she says, was Peter's choice.

YP dismal. Kathleen was off commemorating the first anniversary of her father's demise. Read with some glee that the Succession Bill of Michael English was put off on Friday when it was opposed by the Tories. It now goes to the bottom of the Bills to be read, and no doubt die the death that Norman St John Stevas predicted.

Home to Ally at 6 in daylight. Chicken broth, dumplings, coffee, TV, books, bath, bed, &c.

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