Friday August 4, 1978

New Moon 02:01

Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother is 78 today. I do believe that in six years time she will be the longest lived Queen Consort. Queen Mary was 85, and Queen Alexandra was 80. No Queen of these Isles has lived longer.

Tonight Dave L came up at 8:30 and we went to meet Jacq at the Y.W.C.A and then went over the road to the George, opposite the (Leeds General) Infirmary. It was after 9 before we had a drink and so the evening was slipping quickly by. Dave quite liked the George and he noticed that most of the customers looked like hospital staff. He laughed that it 's an ideal spot to have a heart attack or bout of botulism.

(Botulism is something one gets from eating tins of John West salmon. "It's the cans that John West reject that don't kill you" &c. Dave is laying on a salmon sandwich supper at his party and intends displaying the serial number of the can on each sandwich. My God, aren't we a sick bunch?)

I was home at 11:30 and watched a bit of television. I've been grinning to myself all day because Jeremy Thorpe and three others have been arrested on charges of conspiring to murder Norman Scott between 1968 and 1977. That's buggered the Liberal party once and for all. Mr Steel definitely won't be wanting an election in October. The person I feel sorry for is poor Marion.

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Thursday May 25, 1978

That nauseating, wriggling grub David Steel has announced today that the pact with the government will be ended at the close of the current parliamentary session in July in readiness for a clean sweep towards a general election. He must think we've all fallen off a Christmas tree or something, because I can tell you that the voting papers will still be warm in the ballot boxes when the swindling Liberals team up with Mr Callagas and his gruesome set.

Christine phoned today.

Tonight we expected Jim and Margaret Nason but they never materialised. Edith and Ernest are of course house hunting in far-off Devon. So, it was an unusually quiet night, and a hot one.

I'll fill in a bit of the blank page by mentioning Dad's moustache. He first grew one in 1973, but shaved it off in that historic year. His 1978 effort is even better, and I award him top marks for its high class cultivation, colouring, size, lustre, body and exquisite shape. Indeed, the facial adornment just sends the years rolling from him.

Goodnight.

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Monday February 27, 1978

Hello people. Another bright, Spring like day with singing sparrows and all the usual band waggon.

Carole phoned me at the YP to say she's in Ward 11 of the (Leeds General) Infirmary. I'd forgotten she was going in this morning. At 2:30 I went to see her. She isn't remotely ill-looking and chats away in her famous style. She says she loathes __________. She wasn't wearing an engagement ring but I saw it concealed under the pillow of her bed! When I left she escorted me to the Town Hall (Yep, they even let her out into the streets).

Marita saw me on Wellington St and brought me to Guiseley. She's having something done with her car at Senior Smith's.

Steel: foul smelling.

John made a fleeting call this evening. He and Maria are going to Michelle's party on Saturday. ______.

Susie cut my hair tonight. She's done a great job and once again I look almost semi-Punk. It looks good, I can tell you.

Edith and Ernest didn't get the cottage in Devon but are definitely going to go south this year. Sad, eh?

Dad's been strange tonight. He looks pale. He's terribly out of shape. Fat and out of breath. Quiet too.

Saw the obnoxious David Steel MP on BBC1. He really is a sly, foul smelling being.

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Wednesday September 28, 1977

Lynn and Dave became engaged. He presented her with a ring at about 7.30 and then took her off to Flashman's for a feast. Before this, however, we put away three or four bottles of that champagne substitute which tastes even better than the real thing.

Rt Hon David Steel: cause of nausea.

Lynn looked sublimely happy and I am sure it was a great relief to poor David, who just wants to settle down without any hullabaloo. Mum, Dad and I put away a few lagers after Lynn & Dave had left and then opened the Pernod. They returned at about midnight and we continued with the celebration session. Lynn especially was somewhat pissed and confided in her fiance to feelings of nausea. I was in a similar position too, but it was not all down to alcohol. David Steel and the Liberal party conference on the BBC was the cause of my intermittent vomiting, which completely flattened the whole occasion.

I took quite a few photographs of the happy couple, and so too did David. He now refers to me as 'Our Kid' and I'm sure he'd really like me for a brother. His own brothers are very sober, serious young men.







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