Friday March 13, 1987

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds LS11 5NQ

Saw Caroline again. She handed me a flimsy garment for my 'Tarzan act' tomorrow. Bloody hell, I take on some jobs. I really should have been a thespian. The smell of the crowd and the roar of the grease paint, &c.

-=-

Thursday March 12, 1987

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds LS11 5NQ

At our recent meeting with LG he asked: "were you in last Thursday?" "Yes", quoth I. "Did the Fisherman's Hut play you at pool?" "Yes", quoth I. "Well", he quipped beaming with humour, "you are a cruel, heartless swine for allowing an old man to keel over in your porch without ceasing to trade or to tend to him with your first aid expertise." Yes, the pillock of a landlord had actually phoned LG to report upon my behaviour during the abovementioned incident. LG sides with me. I was blazing. I really should go over and reduce that hideous little Tetley's house to rubble. I took a green-nosed Sam to nursery and I saw Caroline who reminded me that I am doing a 'kissogram' at Middleton on Saturday. In a religious book shop no less.

-=-

Wednesday March, 11, 1987

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds LS 11 5NQ

Have I told you about Anthony Ronald Brotherwood's birthday party? He is 40 on Monday and his wife Margaret the Mouth with Mr C.H. Ratcliffe has arranged a surprise party for Tony and for all his long-lost acquaintances. John has invited me and Chris has phoned to see if I can find some ale. Chris was his old "1973 self". I would be so pleased to rekindle some old friendships because life can become very insular don't you think?

Dad and Clementine.

LG came yesterday at 3pm to put a Sam Smiths 'stout' button on my PLU. He was extremely amenable. He can be nothing else  when his employee is 70 per cent up on last year, and a clean, reliable 32 year-old to boot. He asked me how Dad is coping and I told him that he was upstairs. I was surprised that LG could remember all the facts about Dad, the details: Mum's passing/Horton/the police, &c. Looking seriously over his glasses he said: "Why don't we get him doing relief work?" Enough said. It isn't Dad's scene. Dad left at 2:30 for Mr Carlile's [dentist]. He is having gold teeth, like the villain in the Bond film.

Question: If male priests can be unfrocked, women priests will, when they eventually arrive, be "debagged"

The engagement is announced between Henry, Marquess of Worcester, eldest son of the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort, of Badminton House, Gloucestershire, and Tracy, younger daughter of the Hon. Peter Ward, of Cornwell Manor, Kingham, Oxfordshire, and the Hon. Mrs Claire Ward, of Callow Street, London.

A drugs trial involving the Countess of Cassillis was postponed yesterday when two Crown witnesses were unable to attend Ayr Sherrif Court. The Countess, 26, through Mr Ross Harper, her solicitor, denied possessing quantities of cannabis and amphetamines at her home at Kirkoswald, Strathclyde, last July.

-=-

Tuesday March 10, 1987

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds LS11 5NQ

Dad came at 2. I was in the cellar and he walked down with a pint of lager. Then upstairs for an hour where Clemmie wept at the sight of her long-lost grandpapa. She is so soft and only ever has a smile for Ally and I. I do not remember Sam being so timid. At 6 Ally and I went to Drighlington. Very impressed by the Valley Inn which has a lot of scope and is "our sort" of place I'm sure. Cosy corners, and cosy open fires, &c. We had four or five drinks before I had the opportunity to approach the tennant who proceeded to go green and splutter obviously unaware that LG had put us onto the scent. We Sam Smith employees are very sensitive people. We can smell rats from great distances. We spotted a couple on Saturday who were obviously Sam Smith recruits sussing us out. It made us uncomfortable. We left Drighlington at 8. Drank with Dad and went to the Chinese take-away.

The seventh Lord Ventry, the engaging "lighter than air" Irish peer who has died aged 88, was a certified 'aeronaut', a balloonist, and an inveterate champion of the airship. In 1949 he began work om the Bournemouth, the first airship to be built in Britain since the ill-fated R-101 crashed in 1930. The sausage-shaped dirigible, with an envelope 108 ft long and a capacity of 45,000 cubic feet, was all set to make its maiden flight at Cardington, Beds, in July 1951 ....

-=-

Monday March 9, 1987

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds LS11 5NQ

Stocktake. Mr. Crump came. What a Dickensian name, eh? Very sensible. He gave us a £58 surplus. I planned this eventuality. Dad is slowly driving us insane. It was planned that he would come here tomorrow so enabling us to go minus children to the Pig & Whistle again, but he has taken in some dreadful walkers at Waltergarth, and has now asked to be excused. He is going to come late tomorrow so that we can go to Drighlington and inspect the Valley Inn which LG has mentioned. I do have the impression that father's nearest and dearest are fading in his affections somewhat. He doesn't seem to find any pleasure in the fact that we may be venturing forth on life's pot-holed highway.

-=-

Sunday March 8, 1987

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds LS11 5NQ

1st Sunday in Lent

David Andrew Baker is 31. Aunty Mabel is 68. The two Margarets opened up and we went to Auntie Mabel's where we were joined by Auntie Hilda. I was reprimanded by H. We haven't seen her since John and Janette's wedding last September. The Gadsbys have just had a new fitted kitchen at Wilsby, but H isn't enthusiastic. They say Clemmie resembles Frank and that Sam is a Wilson. A Wilson! He is the image of his Dixon mother. On to MM and Marita's at 3. They are having a lunch party for old friends David and Fay - garlic was wafting everywhere. Large gin and tonics and two hours later we left at 5. Ally very pissed on g & t's she took to her bed and collapsed until 8, leaving me and Samuel with a chicken and Yorkshire puddings. Ally came down to the bar groggy at 8:30. Just the two us worked.

-=-

Friday March 6, 1987

 Moorhouse Inn

Stricken: Herald of Free Enterprise.

"Our" Lynn is 29 today. She phoned at breakfast time to say thank you for the cards but when Ally asked whether she liked her birthday present which we left with her in January [table mats from County Durham] she went very quiet and had quite forgotten to open the parcel. She told us that Jacq is pregnant and due on September 6.

This evening a terrible tragedy occurred. A Channel ferry from Zeebrugge, Belgium, sank minutes after sailing with the loss of life of almost 200 Britons. Watched newsflashes at one and 2 in the morning and went to bed very morose. What a ghastly way to go.

Viscount Brookeborough has died aged 64. 

Viscount Morpeth, who resigned his commission in protest at the Government's defence policy, wants to become a Liberal MP, it was revealed yesterday.

-=-

Thursday March 5, 1987

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds LS11 5NQ

One of those awful days when I was keyed up and ready to have a heart attack. We played the Fisherman's Hut pool team, from Pool in Wharfedale, in the competition here, and during the evening when I was in the bar with no staff an old boy - a friend of Joe House - collapsed in the porch and the Fisherman's Hut landlord called for an ambulance and sat with him and his two companions until the emergency services arrived. Then he, the Fisherman's Hut guy, launched a vicious attack upon me saying how disgusted he was that I that continued 'pulling ale' whilst an OAP lay bereft in my foyer. When I tried to reason with him he argued that a normal publican would have switched off his beer pumps and given first aid to the victim instead of taking money and 'turning a blind eye'. I was livid, like a wounded beast. I hadn't even been party to this pathetic scene, the porch being out behind closed doors away from the active body of the pub. Sod them all.

Dinda Fermor-Hesketh [nee Hunt] wife of John Fermor-Hesketh, gave birth to a daughter, Alice Mary Louisa, on March 5.

Wednesday March 4, 1987

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Before I go any further I must say I have just been watching Channel 4 (midnight) and the Bishop of London [Graham Ellison] talking such sense about his opposition to the ordination of women. He really should be translated to Canterbury instead of that namby pamby [Robert] Runcie. In the words of 'Private Eye' - "why ordain women when we have Robert Runcie?" Have you noticed that women with leanings towards ordination are always 'butch'? Short cropped hair, no make-up, deep, husky voices, &c? However, I am not a practicing member of the Church of England and perhaps should keep my mouth shut.

(Sorry, the Bishop of London is Graham Leonard. Ellison was his predecessor).

Samuel went to his school at Roundhay for the morning. He calls it 'the school with the bell' because it has an old fashioned bell tower. LG came here. He immediately calmed me re his letter of last Friday saying I have got the stick by the wrong end and that he meant no offence. We told him we had visited Whitby and Scunthorpe he jumped in and said he wasn't 'rushing us' and wants us to consider carefully, &c. "Will Scuntehorpe be different to Leeds?" &c. He was very jovial and honest. He is always at loggerheads with Ally and is forever having to say: "Ah, but you have a brain which is a rare thing among Sam Smith managers". &c.

Lord Londesborough has married one Rikki Morris.

Lady Muir-Mackenzie gave birth to a daughter on Sunday.

-=-

Tuesday March 3, 1987

 Moorhouse Inn

Joan Greenwood.

Joan Greenwood, the husky voiced English actress celebrated for her performances in such films as "Kind Hearts and Coronets", "The Importance of Being Earnest", and "Tom Jones", has died a few days short of her 66th birthday. She was found dead, having apparently suffered a heart attack, in her London home at the weekend.

Prince Philip, 65, has undergone a hernia operation at King Edward VII's Hospital for Officers in Marylebone. He was in hospital for 24 hours and discharged on Saturday.

-=-

Monday March 2, 1987

 Moorhouse Inn

Pig & Whistle.

Sunshine, but windy. To Scunthorpe after breakfast to the Pig and Whistle. We were very impressed. Like the Butcher's in Pudsey to look at, and in the market place, but with some daunting rough-looking flats hovering on the horizon. The couple there showed us the upstairs, and excellent flat and the lounge is 'us', you know Victorian flower pots and gilt framed portraits. The place had no tap room and in a very good position for lunchtime customers, who all seemed 'normal'. Lots of business types coming in for food. We sat outside because they did not approve of children, and ate fish and chips (again). Samuel is a fish and chips maniac and he sat in the driving seat peering above the wheel. From Scunthorpe, which is a much better place than I imagined, we went to Barton-upon-Humber, passing Normanby Park, home of the Sheffield baronets, of whom the pouting Davina is an off-shoot. (See journal 1976/77). She is now Mrs Jake Morley, but was almost Princess des Galles. Anyway, we passed over that fine erection, the Humber Bridge, to Howden in search of Jean and David (Watts), but failed to pin-point the actual street. We drove around like idiots after phoning and having no answer. Back at the Moorhouse we enthused abut the Pig & Whistle. 

-=-

Sunday March 1, 1987

 Moorhouse Inn

St David's Day

Quinquagesima

Pouring rain. Dismal. We got to Whitby for 12 and immediately felt disappointed by the so-called Jolly Sailors. Mediocre Sailors, more like. The manager was very unhelpful. Certainly this place is not the one for us. Pool-playing deep sea fishermen with unwashed armpits. Oh, no. We ate fish and chips in the car and headed home for 4 calling at the Barleycorn at Scholes, and Drighlington where we checked out the outside of the Valley Inn, which LG had mentioned is shortly to become a managed house. This did fire something and we returned home for tea excitedly. Just Ally and I tonight. Much whispering together.
 

Saturday February 28, 1987

 Moorhouse Inn

New Moon

Our envelope from the brewery reveals two available pubs:

(1) The Jolly Sailors, Whitby

(2) The Pig & Whistle at Scunthorpe.

We resolve to venture forth tomorrow and on Monday to inspect these hostelries.

Chris.

Christopher's party: We first went to Lidget Green where Ally and Sam were coiffured. Saw Club Street. The Whetnalls have put up net curtains. On to Janette's but she wasn't in. To the Royalty pub for a quick pint in the cold. Sam played on the swings with another Sam and a Jade, as in Jagger. We went to Sue's at 2pm. A jolly afternoon. Much wine. I drove Janette to Menston to collect some 'home brew'. She wanted to see me at the wheel. We found Susan greatly changed. ________. Peter was creating such a 'to do' because Sue spent £15 on a leg of pork. Ally is lucky that I do not know or care what she spends our money on. Home at 6. I have lost my watch.

Over zealous Chinese officials desperate to reach their targets during s campaign to exterminate rodents made some couples produce a rat's tail to get a marriage licence, a Peking newspaper said yesterday.

A letter in the Daily Telegraph from the Rev Brian Anderson, of Bromsgrove: "Sir - Now that push button telephones are so common, the verb 'to dial' seems to be wholly inappropriate. Do your readers have any other ideas? Push, prod or poke just do not seem right especially when we would need to have a replacement for something like 'dialling tone'."

Also from the Telegraph: "... part of a programme published by Manchester City Council for its International Women's Week next month: 'March 8 - come and share the day with deaf lesbians, and start to learn their language. With workshops and videos. All lesbians welcome."

-=-

Friday February 27, 1987

 Moorhouse Inn

Christopher Paul is 5 to-day. Party tomorrow.

Thursday February 26, 1987

 Moorhouse Inn

Clemmie was awake at 4, 5 and 6am. By breakfast I was comatose. Feeling vile. I took a hot bath and threw open the pub doors at 11. Upstairs at 12 I felt so shocking that I took to my bed much to Ally's chagrin. She believes in batting on and ignoring pain. I emerged at 3. Samuel was fun. They had just had a gas leak at the nursery and the numbers were depleted because the kitchen there was out of bounds. This evening Maureen opened up and Ally and I went down at 8. Busy tap room. A very large 18 stone bespectacled ______ was celebrating his birthday. Seven pints a round. I phoned Beverley who took her driving test at Eccleshill this afternoon, and failed, but she is firm and resolute to pass next time. Janette phoned to say that T. Brotherwood is having a surprise 40th birthday party on March 16, a Monday. Phoned Dad. His teeth are coming along splendidly, all gold caps, &c. He'll be worth a fortune.

The Queen has appointed Sir Yehudi Menuin, aged 70, a member of the Order of Merit. The honour is the personal gift of the Queen and recognises outstanding achievements in the arts and sciences.

-=-

Wednesday February 25, 1987

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Leslie Gledhill appeared at lunchtime and I had quite forgotten about the letter of last Friday. It was he who brought it up and when I, with wrinkled brow and perplexed look, questioned his statement, he gasped and said I had taken it the wrong way and that he did not doubt our capabilities or loyalty to Humphrey Smith, his heirs and successors according to law. LG walked around looking at the proposed alterations and then expressed his view that we are in need of a change, which we know, because having done 60 per cent more trade this year than in '86 we will never surpass that figure and so it calls for fresh pastures. LG sais lots of pubs are currently available and mentioned the Star, at Mexborough, and one in Darlington. Ally came down with a chip sandwich and joined in the debate. LG gave us some complements that went right over Ally's head. "He says the same thing to everyone". Anyway the crux of the matter is that he wants us to move, for our benefit, and not for any other sinister reason. Off he went. We went upstairs and looked though piles of pub vacancy leaflets some dating back three years. Where do we fancy? Oh, dear.

Deaths:  George F. Tibbles, at Palm Desert, California, aged 73, composer and scriptwriter who set the cartoon character Woody Woodpecker's manic 'H-h-h-haa-ha' laugh to music.

-=-

Tuesday February 24, 1987

 Moorhouse Inn

At breakfast now things are so bad - we have broken so much crockery that we are drinking tea from priceless commemorative bone china celebrating royal events down the years. King George V silver jubilee mugs, &c. Today for instance my morning cuppa was in the 1973 'Princess Anne and Mark Phillips' wedding mug. I asked Samuel who was the face on the cup, expecting a negative answer and he said: "It's Mrs Thatcher". Hoots of laughter followed. Such a bright child. He was on the right track.

Henry John Heinz II, who has died in Florida, aged 78, was chairman of the international food company founded by his grandfather and namesake in 1869 ...

Prince Edward is to leave for the Caribbean tomorrow for a nine day visit during which, as chairman of the Duke of Edinburgh's Gold Award 30th anniversary project, he is to visit Barbados and Grenada. His programme allows him three free days.

Monday February 23, 1987

 Moorhouse Inn, &c

Pepys.

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Mr Samuel Pepys. It is to him who we, and indeed you, owe the very existence of this humble journal. In the volume of words alone I did pass Mr Pepys's outpourings way, way back. Sadly, my worthless ramblings will never catch on as his did. I have had no plague, or Great Fire, or intimate conversations with the monarch, like wot he did. Dad has informed me that Uncle Arnold kept a journal until the very end. Dad thinks that I am so like his late brother. At 9:30 we went to the municipal swimming pool which was dirty and cold. We changed in a sticky changing room - Samuel and I - along with 73 schoolboys who I overheard gasping at the fact that I was wearing jeans and no underpants. I think it must be all part of my George Michael image. Samuel hated the water. The boiler was off, and so we had a tearful 10 minutes. He then sat with Ally and Clemmie as I did a few breathless lengths. Not quite Duncan Goodhew, OBE. More like Sybil Thorndike, DBE. Margaret Isabella did lunch. No staff from 5:30. I gave Mags the genealogical study of the Duchess of York for 12 year-old Tricia. It was a joy to do. Samuel has a a green nose. He went to school to tell Dermot all about his sub-aquatic inactivity. Poor boy. I could not swim until I was eleven or twelve. I made my first breathless splash at Guiseley baths in about '67 just after we arrived in the borough. The 20th anniversary of our move there falls on March 10. Just Ally and I tonight. Quiet. Dean Hemingway's girlfriend works in the office of Neil Balfour, the Tory candidate owner of Studley Royal, and former hubby of Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia. He's standing for Ryedale. Phoned Dad and Sue. She is better.

Deaths: Lord Talbot of Malahide, who has died aged 87, was the ninth holder of an Irish barony, created in 1831, and Hereditary Lord Admiral of Malahide and the seas adjoining.

-=-

Sunday February 22, 1987

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds, LS11 5NQ

Sexagesima

I have been missing my mother lately. I can go for days without any depression and then suddenly slump into a black, anxious mood where I question everything, and scornfully. Why are we here? Just to rot and provide the earth with fertilizer? ________. Supermarkets too, they can bring on a black mood. I can be pushing my trolley down the row of boxes of cornflakes when suddenly I see Mum, clad in her anorak and scarf beaming around in Settle Co-op , the light glinting upon her specs. Obviously, I am the victim of some horrid neurosis brought on by grief. I look back upon those 'Pine Tops' days with such pain. We appreciate nothing until the the object of that appreciation is gone forever. 

To Temple Newsam where Samuel looked at the pigs. There was an especially ugly turkey. Back refreshed for 11:30am. Margaret Rushton worked. Margaret Isabella Young began here tonight, the daughter of our Mags.

From the Telegraph: "Percy Potter a retired headmaster, celebrated his 100th birthday this month, and for the benefit of an Eastern Evening News interviewer he recalled his early days as a teacher in Lancashire. In one lesson he wrote some words on a blackboard and told the children to use them in a sentence. One of the words was 'comfort'. He reported than when he was marking their work he found a little chap had put 'I've comfort rent'".

Deaths: Honora, Lady Rashleigh [nee Sneyd], widow of Sir Harry Rashleigh, and the Hon Ronald Leslie-Melville.

-=-

Saturday February 21, 1987

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds LS11 5NQ

Margaret Rushton, our absentee barmaid, graced our abode with her presence at luncheon. Her mother is flat out in Killingbeck Hospital weighing in at 4st 7lb. Curtains it seems. Grey-faced Margaret's days are also numbered. We cannot cope with unreliability. Here's a little vignette from Bill Gilmore, a former Scots Guardsman with a large red nose. Someone said to him that perhaps Leeds Utd might win the coming FA Cup. "If Queen Anne had bollocks, she'd be t'King", he quipped. Quite excellent. Ally  and Samuel cleaned the car. I cleaned the beer lines. Ate mounds of liver and onions. Just Ally and I tonight. It was good to see Bernadette McCarron back on form. Ally is delicious. We enjoy the intimate 'staffless' weekends. Poor President Reagan is heading for another Watergate. Poor old sod.

This is piquant. The Princess of Wales has asked for a souvenir of her childhood - a grubby window with 500 telephone numbers written on the frame- to be sent to her at Kensington Palace. The old sash window, with four panes of frosted glass, was found at her birthplace, Park House, Sandringham. Mr Frank Chapman, the site agent, said the Princess told him that she had written some of the numbers and would like to have the window as a keepsake because it brought back happy memories. The window was removed from the telephone room at the rambling Victorian house when it was being converted into a hotel for the disabled  at a cost of £1,500,000. The numbers scrawled in pencil, include the chimney sweep, the hairdresser, the laundry, the fishmonger, the Princess's old school, and Sandringham House. Mr Chapman said: "I've also shown the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Charles round. The Queen likes it very much. She felt it was ideal for the disabled. The Queen, who gave the house to the Leonard Cheshire Foundation, will open on July 31. Dennis Maiden, chairman of the management committee said: "It's the only hotel of its kind in Britain. Obviously, because it's Princess Diana's birthplace, it will be a big attraction." The room in which the princess was born has been turned into a double bedroom. Her nursery has been converted into two single rooms. ....

-=-