Saturday December 3, 1977

_.Mother's coffee morning in aid of Mark Sansom, a 19 month-old brain damaged child whose parents want to send him for treatment to Philadelphia, U.S.A. About 60 people turned up. I stayed in my bed and was visited by my nephew. He must think I'm a lazy rat. Sue came up to see me and had me in stitches when she told me she'd given a cup of hot coffee to an old lady with Parkinson's Disease, who proceeded to shake it all round the room.

I got out of bed at about tea time and remained in circulation until about midnight. Didn't hear from 'the lads'. Saw a Jack Lemmon film on the BBC which was hilarious.

-=-

Friday December 2, 1977

Maria has told Mum that Mrs Phillips told her on Tuesday that Carole's got a 'dark patch' somewhere. Carole is, of course, unaware of this. Shit.

Basil Rathbone.

I'm ill. Revoltingly ill. Saw Basil Rathbone in a 1939 Sherlock Holmes film and then went to bed where I got no sleep until the crack of dawn. I was sweating like Hell all night. Ghastly it was. And the dreams I kept having went on and on for what seemed like hours.








-=-

Tuesday October 25, 1977

_.Day off with Susan. To Bradford at 11 where she did a bit of Christmas shopping - or perhaps I should say all of her Christmas shopping. We met Martyn and had a drink in the Painted Waggon and then Sue went with him to Samuel's to see about a job.

Susan.

Coming home on the bus at 3 o'clock I fell to sleep. It gave Sue a good deal of amusement. At home I phoned the hospital and a helpful nurse said: "she (Carole) is very much better, but very much the same", which is a fat lot of good.

Tony came after tea with bad news. They are taking Carole to Chapel Allerton tomorrow where she is having a hole drilled into the back of her head on Thursday. Tony got this information from her mum, who also told him that they gave Carole something today which paralysed her. Oh God it's hideous. Chapel Allerton Hospital is a leading cancer hospital and most of the leukaemia cases in the area go there. However, the surgery on Carole at the moment is only of an investigative nature and the operation on Thursday is only a test. All may yet be well and in a few months I may well be moaning about seeing Carole out in the usual haunts looking adorable on the arm of Peter Fogarty. I hope to God this is the case.

I felt horribly tired tonight and by 10pm I was dropping off in the chair. By half past I was snoring in bed with 'The Count of Monte Cristo' over my face. I fear I'm never going to get the end of this book. It's taken me a fortnight to read 200 pages which is a very bad show.

-=-

Friday August 27, 1976

Mum is bedridden with her back. I don't like being at home when a member of the family is ill. I have a pathological hatred of poorly people. I'd walk round Lourdes slapping cripples.

Poor Molly Macdonald is at death's door. John told Dad today that she burst a blood vessel in her arm yesterday evening and a doctor told Jim [Macdonald] that 'she could go at any minute.'

Sarah told me today that she and Peter [Baker] have finished. Pity really because he was quite a good laugh, but at least I stand a chance once again. Oh, I might have been going out with Lynne M since June, but that devilment still exists. You can't keep a good man down.

Out with Lynne at 8 o'clock to the Hare. A dead, miserable hole it is too. Sit with Sue and Peter all night, and then David L and the delectable CB arrive at 10 o'clock. Whenever she's around I go wild with exuberence and excitement and our eyes seldom drift from each other for long. Why is this? Is it cruel to Lynne? Do I really think anything at all of Lynne? What the Hell have I been doing since the beginning of June? Oh God. Have I been leading L down the garden path? After Carole, will I ever have a normal affair again? [I'm not offering any apologies for all these questions because you lot have nothing better to do than to attempt to answer them, anyway.]

Home at midnight and Lynne goes off to Bramhope to collect Karl from a party and they drive to Thornton-le-Dale. Won't see her now until next week.

-==-

Wednesday July 3, 1974

Wake up at 9 still not feeling really fit and Mother rings the doctor in order that something can be done to bring back my apetite. Anyway, Kathleen will need a doctors note dated today, because one is only allowed 2 days sick leave without official notification from the local witch doctor. By lunchtime we still have no word from the fool, and so we settle down to a meal and have no desire to eat it. The doctor came at about 2.15 - a nice chap, Dr Jacques, and he diagnoses food poisoning. We can't go back to work until Monday and we have to take it easy. Hell, the bedroom stinks like a mortuary or something equally obnoxious - all visitors turn up their noses on entering the room. Poor Mum keeps trying to kill the reek of vomit with a perfumed spray but this fails to achieve anything.

See more World Cup soccer on tv in the evening. Who cares whether Bulgaria or Bratislava manages to qualify for the fifth round of this stupid tournament?

Ring Chris. He didn't know Andy and Linda had been struck down. He's going out tonight. Also ring Andy, who is in the bath, but Keith speaks to me whilst Andy wallows.

See a good play starring Celia Johnson - a very good actress - and the play had a good story which ended where you expected it to end and not slap bang in the middle of one of the scenes, like so many modern plays tend to do.

Oh, aren't I a bloody awful diarist? Who the Hell wants to know the mundane circumstances of everyday life in the nasty, boring mid-1970s.

-==-

Tuesday July 2, 1974

Wake up at nearly 5am. The sun is rising over the Chevin, and the whole room is filled with a beautious glow. Don't feel well, and fall back into a deep, deep sleep. Lynn wakes John and I at 11 when Andy pays a call on us both. He looks really ill. Hear that poor Linda collapsed while speaking to her parents on the phone, and it seems she was the first to go down with it, Sunday night being the start of the plague. After the half hour visit Andy leaves with: "are you going out for a drink tonight?" I almost go hysterical. Lay drowsily listening to the radio until 5. Force down some steak, but do not enjoy it. My apetite is still unaccounted for.

Sit in the armchair till just before 10 then go to bed. Oh, I nearly forgot. Judy rang at 9 and before I could say anything she told me she'd been ill since yesterday with chronic sickness, wobbly knees, etc. Aaaarrgghhh...it's spreading like the plague....

-==-

Monday July 1, 1974

Dominion Day, Canada. Wake at 6am with the feeling that I am about to vomit. Lay perfectly still, hand clasped over my mouth until 7. Up at 8.30 and discharge the whole of yesterdays consumption of food and drink. Sick again at 10. Try to sleep until lunch but cannot because of the acute pain. Dad rings the YP and tells them that I will not be in today. Spend a lousy afternoon laying in a semi-coma under my voluminous bedding. Get up at 6 and sit shivering in a chair until 9.30, drinking arrowroot. Andy rings and says that Linda collapsed on Sunday night and is now in the college sick-bay. Andy himself had the day off work today due to sickness, and four work-mates who were also at Saturdays party are also ill. I now realise we've all been poisoned. Either metal polish in the punch or powdered arsenic in the sandwiches, I don't know, but whatever it was, it's been bloody well effective.

List of victims:
Michael rhodes
John Rhodes
Andrew Graham
Linda Smith.

-==-

Wednesday February 6, 1974

Queen Anne born, 1665. Death of Charles II, 1685. Death of George VI, 1952.

Although no snow fell overnight, last night's quota is still very evident. The whole lane looks like a picture from a traditional Christmas card. Leave for work at 8. Slide down the lane, up to my ankles in crisp snow.

Speculation about a possible General Election is the main topic of both YP and EP today. I don't know what to think. One thing's for sure, the so-called national strike will be halted if the marxist TUC leaders think that 'Darling Harold' (Wilson) will win the election. All my sympathy goes to Mr Heath. After all, he did his best. It would certainly be a joyous day to have the old boy once again at the helm, as it were, but the possibilities do seem remote. After all, no matter how good a government has been they are seldom returned for a second time. We'll have to wait and see what happens.

Lynn is currently shut away in her room with a chill or something. She looks terribly pale. However, in general, the health of the family is quite remarkable. I am the only one who has ever really missed a lot of time from school - but that was many years ago. John is certainly the healthy one of the clan. To be honest, I cannot remember a day when he's missed time from school, and in 2 years the boy's never missed one day of work.

Sit in bed browsing through old Agatha Christie novels which are still good the second time around.

-==-

Saturday January 5, 1974

Nearly noon when I awoke, feeling very much improved. No blocked up feeeling at all. Have no breakfast and leap into the bath at 1.30. Try to have a shower but something is wrong with the warm water.

During lunch Denny rings and I tell her that everyone is going to the Cow and Calf tonight - she is overjoyed. I suppose we'll get a lift with Pete Mather.

After lunch I sit with a Guinness in front of the tv. By 4.30 the light is nearly gone completely and the night is once again upon us.

Hear from Chris at 6.30 who intends going to the Emmotts for 8. John and I arrive at 7.50. Sit with Ivy who is in very high spirits. Chris and Pete come in at about 8.15. Andy, of course, has been propping up the bar since 7.30. Dear Denny, wearing a beautiful coat, sits on the other side of Ivy. At 9.30 we go to the Red Lion in Burley-in-Wharfedale. Dave Lawson left John without a lift after going out of his way to offer him one. Subsequently, about six of us had to pile into Pete's car. At 10.30 we go onto to the moor to the Cow & Calf. Denny and I take turns in buying drinks for one another. We have a couple of tremendous dances. 'Dance with the Devil' by Cozy Powell is the greatest record I've heard this year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhR5EDH-rMo

However, I feel too self-conscious when dancing with Denny because she is such a good dancer - perfect in fact.

Pete brings us home in dense fog at 2.0am. Singing all the way.

-==-

Friday January 4, 1974

Awake at 11.30 feeling very much better. The morning in bed's done me a lot of good. Slip into a robe and go downstairs for lunch. Mum comes home at 12.20 absolutely frozen solid due to the electricity and heating cuts in her office. This 'Three Day Week' will give everyone pneumonia. See a George Formby film in the afternoon - not very funny, but hear all the unusual, out-dated swear words like 'twerp', which I think means a pregnant fish or something. At about 7.30 John goes to the Emmotts whilst I sit by the fire. See a 35 minute programme on the Royal Wedding - very impressive. The BBC must be showing it to cheer everyone up in the present crisis. A cartoon in the paper the other day said what we now want is either a royal wedding or a royal birth. That ought to be the green light for the Prince of Wales. -==-

Thursday January 3, 1974

Awake feeling terrible. A runny nose, watery eyes, dry throat, blocked ears. Terrible. Stagger to Guiseley for the 8.20 train. See Judith who says I should not have ventured out in my condition. The weather is also terrible. Icy wind and very thick frost. I can feel it getting on to my chest. A nasty cough is round the corner.

Poor Dad spent the day in bed after being horribly sick in the night. The meal at the CW cannot have agreed with his digestive juices. However, Auntie Hilda has also been violently sick recently, but her case can be diagnosed very easily. If you drink an entire bottle of Bacardi you cannot expect to feel bright and breezy for a couple of days. She denies that the drink is the culprit, saying it must have been something she ate at our buffet!

Stagger home from the YP and go early to bed.Decide not to go in tomorrow because I do not intend killing myself for the sake of a cheap little newspaper.

Sit, propped up by pillows, until 8.20 when I fall asleep.

The papers are still full of the Prince of Wales and Lady Jane Wellesley. Somehow I can't see anything coming out of this affair at all. The Mail says Charles is only using her as a cover for Lady Cecil Kerr, a Catholic. I don't know what to think.

-==-

Monday November 26, 1973

Get up at 7.30 after having had one and a half hours sleep without being sick. Not in the least nervous about the 'A' level History exam - I am far too used to them by now. I will now leave a three hour gap where the exam was.

(Fluffy cloud with "Three Hours" written across it.)

Phew! That was a bit of a stinker! Still feeling ill I go to Leeds where Kathleen sends me home because I look 'terrible'. Mum was not surprised to see me, and I sat down in the lounge in front of the tv until 6.30. After a bowl of soup, my first meal in 48 hours, I watched tv until 9.30 and then retired to bed where I immediately fell to sleep......Zzzzzz.....Zzzzzz....Zzzzz.

--==--

Sunday November 25, 1973

Last after Trinity. At 8pm I was severely sick and continued to vomit at hourly intervals until 4am. Hell, it's so terrible being sick. Feel so useless and animal-like. It must have been the pork I had for lunch. It's never been my favourite meat. Bed at 10 o'clock.

--==--

Tuesday August 7, 1973

Rains all day. Had rum in my flask again. By evening my cold is greatly improved.

Watch tv. See 'The Winslow Boy' at 6.30. A very good film indeed. Makes English justice seem perfect. Bed 10.30.

--==--

Monday August 6, 1973

Feeling terrible. Rains solidly all day. Cold worsening. I put a large shot of rum in my flask and battle through nine hours of painting garage doors, three handkerchiefs and two phensic tablets.
So glad to be home at 5.30.

June rings at 7. So wonderful to hear her voice again. Fortunately she doesn't want to go out tonight - I am in no fit state. We decide to leave it until Friday evening.

See 'Coronation Street'. Bed 10.30. This cold ought to have cleared by tomorrow.

--==--

Sunday August 5, 1973

7th after Trinity. Awake feeling rather ill. Last nights chase around Horsforth in torrential rain cannot have helped the situation. By lunchtime I realise I am not going to get through next week without bearing the burden of a terrible illness. By 6.0 I cannot stop sneezing.

Sit through a Peter Sellers film which is very funny, but by 10.30 I am in a shocking state. Go to bed with a rum coffee, hot water bottle and two phensic tablets. Sleep soundly.

--==--