Sunday November 10, 1985

Queen Mum: poppy the size of a dustbin lid.

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds LS11 5NQ

Remembrance Sunday

Hawkins: awful.

Ally was flat out in bed all morning looking very pale and complaining of griping pains in her tummy. She has the bug I had earlier in the week. Samuel and I made a lot of noise and ate breakfast watching the Cenotaph ceremonies from Whitehall. Samuel found the marching a great joke, but the trumpeters appealed. The Queen, wearing that same old black overcoat, and the Queen Mother up on the balcony (with King Olav) wearing a poppy the size of a dustbin lid, Good old girl.

Tim Elmer's birthday. I don't have a clue how old he is. I went down at 12. Two hours of the Egan's 'grand tour' of Europe. _______. A slothful afternoon. Watched 'Eastenders' at 2. Ally laid upon the settee like a large, pink shrimp. We watched a noisy epic, with an Egyptian theme, featuring Jack Hawkins as the Pharaoh Khufu and Joan Collins as Princess Nellifer. Awful. No staff were planned for this evening , and we didn't of course account for Ally being ill, but Chris appeared at 8:30. A God send. Argued with Jack Collett and Harold about the monarchy and the history thereof. Poor H assumes that because a man was Duke of York (Wars of the Roses) that he was born and bred in the county.

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