Sunday February 4, 1979

_. Up at 11:30 for breakfast. We discuss Lynn _______________________. Peter N came here at 3:30. I watched a programme on the BBC about the Bronte Sisters which was dull and morbid. Also watched a play 'The Voysey Inheritance' at 8. Bed at 1am. Feeling tired and dreary. A full day of TV cannot do us any good.

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Thursday August 3, 1978

Jacq and I had a lunchtime drink at the Ostlers which was pleasant. She showed me a letter she has received from Gina inviting us both to RAF Benson for a weekend. Should be OK. Gina seemed like a very nice girl at our brief meeting in April.

Tonight is 'Margaret & Jim' night. Jim says he's related to the Bronte sisters but doesn't remember how exactly. He also says his mother's maiden name is Fowkes, an ancient Yorkshire surname which entitles him to bear arms, &c. I will do some research into this for him.

Poor Lynn is ill. She went to the doctor with chronic ear~ache this evening, and he partially syringed her ears and subsequently she came home in really bad pain. She was in tears at midnight. Jim went home for some pain~killers because we didn't have an asprin in the house, and she slept quite well after that. She suffered a few twinges at about 5 or 6am.

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Saturday November 12, 1977

I woke at about 12 and could hear Mum yelling about something from her bed. Evidently she did hear Jacqui and I listening to the stereo in the early hours and is far from happy about it. I hid for quite a while beneath the sheets until some sort of plan of action could be worked out in my enfeebled mind. I decided upon the straight, honest, Richard Nixon approach and just marched, with head held high, into her bedroom and said sorry. She was perfect from then on and just said in that famous, soft, musical voice: "Michael, you take your mother for granted." I fear I do. And she's ill too. I am a swine.

Haworth: the parsonage.

After lunch Jacqui and I got a bus to Haworth (Bronte Country and all that). It's like Hell on earth. I soon see why Charlotte, Emily and Anne never reached the age of 40. Bleak is hardly the word. What's more, it snowed. We dashed round the parsonage and then into a cafe where hot tea and cream buns failed to revive us. Felt ill and cold. Jacqui giggled. She can hardly wait to tell the folks back home who have never seen a desolate moor or the rampaging spectre of Heathcliff.  We spent more time on the road than we did at Haworth, and at 5.30 we got a bus home.


Tonight we thawed out and watched TV. Saw Penelope Keith and Lord Carnarvon on the Michael Parkinson Show.

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