Thursday October 4, 1979

_. Up at 8 to find myself in bed in Bradford. Ally is attending a course at Minever House on East Parade in Leeds and so she took me to town in the spitfire. Chaotic traffic. Didn't reach the YP until 9:30. Sarah says: "And where do you think you spent the night?" She'd phoned home to be told by mother that I hadn't been seen since yesterday afternoon.

At 1 o'clock I went to meet Ally on East Parade. She has a £4 parking ticket. Traffic wardens are really the lowest form of life. On to Club Street where a man in a van has arrived from Winchester with furniture including the dreaded piano. Taking in the furniture was a doddle, but the piano not so easy. I kept looking over at the Victorian monstrosity and wincing. We reached deadlock on the doorstep and had it not been for a passing telephone engineer we would never have got it in the house. We also struggled taking a double bed upstairs. We had one drink in the pub across the road before heading back to Pine Tops for 5:30pm.

Maria and the children came to see Mama. Catherine was wonderful, but JPH ill and pale.

Out at 6:30 to Bradford where we joined Sarah and Richard [Burke]  at the Alhambra to see Derek Jacobi in 'Hamlet', by Mr Shakespeare. An incredible, gripping performance which held me ecstatic for over three hours. Afterwards we went into the Vaults pub next to the theatre and found Derek Jacobi and Brenda Bruce [who played Queen Gertrude] propping up the bar.

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Thursday August 31, 1978

The usual visit from the Nasons. Jim says he's going to the Isle of Man next week for a riotous time with his friends at the TT races. Margaret doesn't appear to object to his indulgences.

We saw the final part of 'I, Claudius' starring Derek Jacobi. I do believe that Mr Jacobi is a protégé of Sir Laurence Olivier and it is easy to see why. Jacobi is brilliant and an undoubted star of the 1980s.

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