Friday August 31, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Cousin Reggie is 18 today.

Once again Ally played darts with Dave the Grave - it's a feature of Friday evenings now.  Edna, upon her bar stool, says she is depressed because she is dying of cancer. How morbid can you get? Why come out drinking with all that stress and worry upon your shoulders? 

We have decided to have a 'tramps convention' fancy dress. Nobody will take a blind bit of notice of it, I'm sure. We'll send invitation postcards to Sarah C, MM, &c.

Aristo news: 

Dead: Lady Eileen Crichton-Stuart, daughter of the Marquis of Bute, killed by a man from Leeds driving a stolen car. Viscountess Chelsea is deceased too ~ a daughter of the Earl of Portsmouth, or Plymouth?  She's a Wallop anyway. Her brother Viscount Lymington died recently.

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Thursday August 30, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Ally was banging around with a face like Arthur Scargill. Donna Lea phoned to say she is visiting us and in she came at 7pm. A casual approach to be sure. She is all for promotions and silly evenings and us having some sort of 'do' in the near future. We ponder on this one. Ally recovers this evening and mellows after her day of violence. We stood downstairs. Our beer prices increase net week. Old Brewery Bitter goes up from 57p to 60p a pint. My God. How they will moan.

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Wednesday August 29, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Lynn is home from hospital. Ally phoned and Lynn was croaking down the line. A cold. Dave L rolled up at 8:30 and we - he and I - headed to the Blooming Rose and then the Junction. Incognito of course. It was disco night in the packed Junction. People were not drinking though. Hundreds of teenagers gathered around one pint of Tetley's. Back to Ally at 10. She was entertaining Brian. Consuming wine. David is as weird as ever, and he doesn't 'booze'. I am unsure what his aim in life is. Teaching bores the pants off him, and yet he doesn't want to give up. At the same time he fancies a pub tenancy in a town centre. He left at 11:30. __________.

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Tuesday August 28, 1984

Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Trixie.

Jacq Sate and dear Trixie came in at 9pm followed by Rob and his minder. We congregated in the lounge. Trixie looks much the same. She has quit the BBC because they have migrated from the Alexandra Palace to Milton Keynes. She continues to drink pints of bitter, but this no longer looks outrageous like it did in the sheltered genteel days of 1977. Rob left at 10:20 - and in the quiet of the night we had more pints and gave Jacq and her mama a guided tour and went upstairs to listen to records ~ Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Boy George, &c. Trixie says that the Queen will abdicate and that Charles will be Britain's last sovereign. I told her not. We discussed death. Poor Pete Holroyd croaked on a Lancashire golf course on the very day I met Jacq in San Antonio.__________. How hospitable we are.

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Monday August 27, 1984

 Bank Holiday in UK (except Scotland)

Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Bank holidays are a non-event here, as you know. As soon as it was decently possible we escaped and drove to Otley (hospital) to see our nephew, Tommy Baker. Otley was packed with vomitting juveniles and people without their trousers standing on street corners, &c. The river, as we passed over the bridge, looked like the Ganges at bathtime. In other words, Otley is a place to be avoided on bank holiday mondays. 

We found a congregation around Lynn's bed. The baby is very wrinkled with knees like an elephant, and incredibly tiny. Lynn, as usual, looked like she has just spent a day at the beach. David reserved, as ever. Back to Sue's afterwards. They are backing out of the Lanzarote holiday because of the house on Thorpe Lane. We spoke to (uncle) John only this morning and he has found us the perfect villa at Puerto Del Carmen. We are disgusted at Susan's flippant attitude, and now because they are letting us down the cost of the holiday has increased from £170 per head to £210. This his still a bargain though. Ibiza in the old days cost us £200.

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Sunday August 26, 1984

 New Moon

10th Sunday after Trinity

Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Mum phoned at 3:30am to say that Lynn had gone into hospital, and when Ally phoned at 7:30 she was told that David had gone home from hospital to see the girls. Later, at visiting time, Lynn was packed off home because her contractions had ceased and so she went over to Pool (in Wharfedale) in her nightgown for tea with Audrey and Henry. Within an hour she was back on the ward heaving away.

A jolly morning in bed. I lay with Samuel singing 'happy birthday' to the Duke of Gloucester. He giggled at my idiocy. 

We spent an evening of tension propping up the bar talking to Bernadette (McCarron), a mother of five daughters. Jill and Tim came in with a couple of friends and we talked about London. The place was cleared by 10:45 and we had a drink with the Elmers. Mum phoned at 11:30pm to say that Lynn had given birth to a son at 10:35pm weighing 6lb 2oz, and named Thomas David. We squealed with glee. A son! They must be chuffed to arseholes. I had a Mandarine Napoleon brandy to celebrate. Jill phoned Karen and Di. And so, to bed.

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