Saturday March 13, 1976

The wedding of the year. I was wakened at 8am by Mum. Look out of the window onto a cold, wet, damp, unhealthy scene. John stirs half an hour later and curses the rain because he wanted to clean the spitfire and make it respectable for the ensuing honeymoon.

Mum and Sue go off to have their hair done & I go over the marriage service with John, make a speech for the reception, and make myself generally presentable.

The girls are back at 10.30 whilst Lynn and Carole in the meantime are knocking back Cinzano and lemonade with gusto. I tell them that the bride may be blushing, but the bridesmaids will be belching. Sarah and Delia arrive with flowers. Susan blow-waves John's hair while he goes over the marriage service yet again.
Clad in morning suits John and I go in a Rolls Royce to the church. At the church by 12.25. Pay the organist, deal with the registrar and give Father Scannell his money. The guests arrive and by 1pm they are all seated. The bride is 20 minutes late and the priest announces dryly from the vestry door that Maria is now on the missing persons list and that she's probably changed her mind.

She comes down the aisle on the arm of her Dad and accompanied by Lynn, Sue and Elizabeth Macdonald. The service is hysterical really and old Scannell turnd it into something of a circus. He embarrassed John and upset Maria and I left the church afterwards feeling stunned that such a ridiculous 'palarva' can be called a marriage service. The signing of the register was riotous.

The reception was first class. I was on the top table next to John, and Auntie Mabel and Uncle Jack sat directly opposite. Jim Mac made a lengthy speech and I followed it up with a small one of my own. All went off marvellously well really.

Party at the Macdonald residence tonight. Masses of relatives attended and the highlights were: 1). Auntie Eleanor and Jackie having a tremendous row, 2). Jackie telling me __________________________; 3).Poor Carole getting as pissed as a newt and me having to bring her home at midnight. 4). John ringing after setting off on his honeymoon to say he'd broken down at a place near Settle and had booked in at a hotel for the night, &c.


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Friday March 12, 1976

A hectic day indeed. Get up at 12.15 feeling quite fit. John is in a terrible state and remembers nothing about last night. He and Maria go shopping in Bradford whilst I sit in the dining room thinking of something to say in my speech tomorrow.

Jim Macdonald comes round at 3 with our morning suits. They look tremendous on. Mum and Dad go out shopping all afternoon and then back to Jim and Molly's to discuss the buffet.

I rang Carole. Stunned to hear she was involved in a nasty road accident this lunchtime. Her friend was driving a car down Butcher Hill in Bradford and ran into a van or something. Both girls were hysterical but not seriously hurt. She says she only has a bruise on the head.

I go down to see her at 8 o'clock after having been to a wedding rehearsal at Burley. Her forehead is cut and it looks hideous. Why didn't she tell me this on the phone? Her Mum and Dad don't even know how she has come to receive such a wound, and haven't bothered to force the truth out of her. Funny goings on indeed.

We go across to the Hare where Mum and Dad join us with the rest of the gang at 8.30. John is out but no Maria. He has a last quiet drink before the burdens of responsibility weigh him down. See Ian Appleyard with his wife and Kevin Taylor. Home with Carole who's sleeping the night at 11 o'clock or so.

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Friday February 27, 1976

A night at the Hare & Hounds. Carole does her hair curly again - like it was last summer - and the sight of her peeping over the top of her lemonade glass, with ringlets and sparkling eyes, gives her a Shirley Temple quality which is very rare these days. _______. A depressed, hysterical old bag is now a happy, skipping, bubbling wench again. O the beauty that is innocence!

Maria and John came down and so too did Peter M, who is reassured that I still want to go on holiday. I say all is fine, except for the money, and he offers to lend me some. A good lad is Peter.

John almost got into a fight with a little swine who upset Maria. She'd never even laid eyes on him before and he went on and on about her being pregnant. John asked him to aplogise but he wouldn't, and so J stormed away leaving the little bugger staring at him, flexing his muscles.

I see Daryl Wills, the EP reporter, and sort something out about getting John & Maria's wedding on the front page.

Carole and I walk home and once again we're up until 4am playing at Romeo & Juliet.

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Tuesday February 17, 1976

A wet damp day again. Carole goes to hospital for a check-up on her kidneys this morning and we meet in Leeds at 1 o'clock again. These ventures out a lunchtimes are rare, and it's weird going out two days in a row!

Things in the news: Angola, Angola and Angola. All we hear about on the TV news and in the newspapers is of the struggles going on in this futile African country where Cubans, Russians and ex-convict British mercenaries are killing each other for a piece of territory that's about as big as Wembley stadium. It doesn't make much sense to me and I think most people are confused by it all too. Ian Smith won't be too happy about it in neighbouring Rhodesia and bloody revolution will undoubtedly follow in that fascist colony now.

See in the EP that Basil Hume, Abbot of Ampleforth is the new Archbishop of Westminster and the next (only) English cardinal. As head of the Roman Catholics in England he'll conduct important ceremonies like, for instance, the marriage of Mr John Philip Rhodes with Miss Maria Christine Macdonald next month.

Carole rings tonight and so too does Christine White just to make sure we know the arrangements for Friday nights excursion to York. Carole's communication was just a gosspipy one. She has a way of aggravating me on the phone (don't ask me why) and I much prefer to speak to her in the flesh. She did say that she will not go for a hospital check-up again and nothing I say will deter her from this point of view. However, the gruesome activities they get up to with her blood samples made me feel sick just hearing about them.

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Tuesday February 10, 1976

A Spring-like day and everyone seems to think that winter's gone for another year - or at least everyone in the office feels this is so.

Sarah sees in one of the papers that Elton John is on at the Grand Theatre on April 29, and after contacting the place she tells me the tickets range from £2 to £3. I shall have to contact Carole on this subject and see if she fancies seeing the midget singer in the flesh. No doubt millions of his fans will turn up on the day in question and hog all the tickets.

Keeping my ever watchful eye on the peerage I see today that a prospective duke is engaged to be married. Lord Settrington, grandson and next-but-one in succession to the Duke of Richmond is set to marry a certain Sally Clayton.

Home at 5.30 to roast beef & Yorkshire puddings with Mum, Dad, Lynn, David & John. Maria bought her wedding dress on Saturday.

David and Lynn are in a roving mood. We meet Carole and go to the Hare at 9.30 after seeing 'Fawlty Towers'. We sit for about an hour chatting about what things will be like in 40 years time and discussing Garibaldi biscuits, which Lynn has never heard of. Carole, poor soul, just cannot grasp my sense of humour at all, and at times it becomes very trying having to explain everything in great detail. Dave brings Lynn & I home at 11 o'clock and I mess about doing sod all for an hour or so.

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Monday February 9, 1976

A brighter day and I go to work without that revolting, black imitation leather coat for the first time since the bleak, bone-chilling winter set in - all those months ago.

John & Maria went down to the Silverdale estate again today and put down a deposit, or something, on a house there. I am puzzled though because John came back saying that the builders cannot install central heating in the property until July, when Maria will be 18. I fail to see what Maria's age has to do with the plumbing arrangements. The house won't be ready until May/June, & so they'll have to live with Jim & Molly for a couple of months or so.

Stuart rings from York to say that Brummels will let us all in on February 20, if I want to arrange a select coach party for that date._______. To think that Phyllis Whitethighs, heir to the Whitethigh's chain of supermarkets will be engaged in just over two weeks time! Everyone seems to be falling to this dreaded disease which seems to snatch away young people in the prime of life. Surely some cure could be found to rid the land of it? Tighter quarantine laws would help for a start, because this 'engagementomania' as it is scientifically termed, is very widespread on the Continent and the wops are somehow carrying it over with them on the Channel ferries and hovercrafts.

Carole rings at about 8.45. The Old Man and Lady Phillips are still not speaking to her and she's obviously upset by it. Mum thinks they may be pining for an invitation to attend the wedding of the decade.

Saw Susan George in quite a good film and (to) bed at something after midnight.

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Monday February 2, 1976

Up at 7.50 to discover my hair is standing on end and jutting out in all directions as though I've been electrocuted. No amount of brushing or combing restores it to the norm. Hell, it was only cut on Thursday!

Monday is usually quite busy with Sundays national newspapers and the rest, but by 2.30 I manage to have everything under control.

Delia Collis sent an estimate for John & Maria's flowers and it's very good really. Maria's bouquet will be £6 and Libby's, Lynn's and Sue's will be £3. Delia will do a good job.

See in the EP that Dorothy, Countess of Halifax died today aged 90. The old girl once lived at Hickleton Hall, near Goldthorpe, where Mrs Wagstaffe worked as a domestic servant 60 or 70 years ago. (Mrs Wagstaffe was our aged next door neighbour at Goldthorpe 10 years ago). Old Lord Halifax was Foreign Secretary at the time of Munich and almost became Prime Minister in May 1940 instead of Churchill.

Carole rang at lunchtime and we had a nice chat.

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Saturday January 31, 1976

Marita, 21. John & Maria get engaged. However, this historic and fabulous event was marred by my antics this afternoon when I 'finished' with Carole on the phone at 2.45.

It was something I decided to do last night, and is something I regret having done. She wept and said she loved me and wanted to know my reasons, and so I went down to meet her at the White Cross. I marched down Thorpe Lane wrapped only in a scarf and was soon frozen stiff. Carole met me walking down the lane and we both walk back to the Cross. She couldn't stop crying and I became horribly upset by it. Her devotion and love for me was so clearly obvious, and I realised that life wouldn't be the same without her. Both blue with cold and wet with tears we walked towards Menston, and stood weeping on each others shoulders near Highroyds Hospital. I asked her to go on loving me. Don't ask me why I changed my mind because as far as I was concerned I had finished with her, and all I had to do was walk away, but when it came to it I could not take my arms from around her.

She went into Guiseley to get John & Maria a present and I returned home with a severe case of frost-bite.

Later: Met Carole at her place at 7.15 and go over to the Hare & Hounds immediately. For one and a half hours we're on our own. The others begin to roll in at 9pm and Mum & Dad come in with Jim and Molly.

Maria's engagement ring is a diamond set in white gold and looks perfect. The party starts at about 11 and is a great success. All the mob came suitably furnished with presents.

Chris and Christine were the last ones to leave. John went to bed at about 2.30 and spewed his guts up. Sat up with Dave B, Lynn, Carole, Maria & Mum until about 6am.

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Friday January 30, 1976

January has certainly been a hectic and eventful month. To make matters worse Helen L came in tonight sporting an engagement ring from her boyfriend in Worcester, and the shock of both Helen and John's news proved too much for CD to bear. She was near to tears and needed a few strong drinks to revive her.

Carole was quiet again. John says it's because Maria has not asked her to play at bridesmaids, but I cannot believe she'd be so childish. Her mood is because John & Maria's future seems secured, whilst ours just meanders along. Her childishness at times staggers me and makes me say and do rash things that I regret.

I come home with John and Maria in the spitfire at about 11.15 and sit brooding in the dining room about Carole. I just don't want to see her again. A clean sweep will make things better. Oh I don't know really. Is it just a phase I'm going through?


to be continued

Wednesday January 28, 1976

John and Maria come round this evening to discuss the wedding plans and things. Peter and Dave also came up, but I'm not seeing Carole until tomorrow.

They discuss the usual things, viz bridesmaids, flowers and cards and I suggest Delia Collis (Sarah's mum) for the flowers, because she's something of an expert in the flower arranging department. I will get an estimate from Sarah tomorrow.

I am confirmed as the 'best man' and feel nervous already at the prospect of giving a speech to the assembled multitude on March 13.

I say they should hire a Rolls-Royce for the occasion, but Maria astounds me by saying a Rolls costs £50 an hour to rent.

I depart to bed at 12. Everyone is in high spirits about the wedding.

P.S. My future sister-in-law is a Scot. She was born in Glasgow. You'll all be thrilled by that morsel of information.

P.P.S. Saw Marita on the bus at 4.20 and informed her of the engagement. It will be her 21st on Saturday.

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Monday January 26, 1976

Mum wasn't feeling too well on Saturday and the shock of John's announcement last night has just about finished her off altogether. She had a day in bed, but by the time I arrived home she was cheery and discussing engagement presents with Susan.

John and Maria went too see the priest at the RC church in Burley-in-Wharfedale this evening and came home with tales of hilarity about the old devil. They think the 'big day' is to be March 13, but I don't think it's definate yet. (Our great-grandfather John Wilson was born on March 13, 1853 - just thought I'd mention it.)

John asked me to be his 'best man' and I'm on the edge of my seat with the excitement and terror of it all. God only knows where it is all going to end - and I hope that the wedding bells aren't going to give Carole any ideas because she's going to be disappointed if she expects similar treatment. __________.

To think I have always had John 'married off' as it were, in these pages, to Carol Smith, Naomi Downing and of course dear Christine White, but I don't think I've mentioned the 'does this mean wedding bells?' with him and Miss Maria Christine Macdonald.... or have I?

See the Peter Sellers film 'What's New Pussycat' or something. A brilliant film, and as far as I am concerned Peter Sellers can do no wrong.

Carole rang at 7 and we talked for half an hour or so. I don't think we'll be going out until Thursday night and am surprised to hear that she hasn't spoken to Mrs Phillips since the latter told Molly Macdonald that I had short arms and long pockets. No doubt all will be patched up between them in good time.

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Sunday January 25, 1976

3rd Sunday after Epiphany. After a restless night I eventually get up at 11 o'clock. John lays cowering in bed and I feel miserable for him. The whole thing seems like a dream - and I expect to wake up from it any moment. To make matters worse I have a hangover and my nervous system in general just can't take much more.

John looks at the situation objectively. One regret is that he may well have to dispose of his car.

It snows for most of the day and it's bitterly cold. Carole and I go for a long walk through Hawksworth and we are near to hysterics after the events of the weekend.

Coming back to our place I pass what seems like the longest afternoon I have ever experienced. Carole and I frantically whispering. The television seemed to be devoted to Mothercare advertisements and references to marriage and children.

After tea Carole, Mum, Sue & Peter and I watch the film 'The Italian Job' and at 9.30 I take Carole down for her bus. I chase home in freezing conditions and play cards in the dining room with Sue & Pete.

John and Maria come and sit with Mum. I hope and pray that they will tell her before 'bedtime'. Lynn and Dave come in at 10 o'clock and our card game comes to a sudden end when Dave says that John & Maria have told Mum the news. Dad comes in ten minutes later and we all sit down with a bottle of whisky. Mum & Dad take the news like angels. Shocked and speechless.

At 12 o'clock John takes Maria home with the task of breaking the news to the Macdonalds. I shall report on that event in tomorrow's entry.

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Saturday January 24, 1976

I am in a state of great shock and acute excitement. Carole left at 10 o'clock before I got up and I didn't stir until 12.

John went off to see Andy at the Station on Henshaw Lane and I did nothing at all until lunchtime.

Dave L rang and I was surprised to hear he's home for the weekend. God knows what he'll be doing tonight because Linda hasn't invited him to her 21st.

Carole rings at 2.30, or 3 o'clock and John and I go round to Maria's. Richard Wellock and a friend are there supping tea and Carole is looking shifty, and I wonder what the Hell is wrong. Richard and friend go and Carole and I are left alone listening to the Santana LP. Mr & Mrs Mac go out and John and Maria are sitting in the dining room.

Carole looked at me and said: "We didn't go shopping to Leeds this morning, you know." I replied "what did you do then?" And she said: "It's something to do with Maria." I felt my knees knocking together. The truth rushed over me like a waterfall. She is pregnant. John's going to be a daddy in August, and I am going to be an uncle. I cannot describe the emotion of it all. Happiness mixed with a reserved sense of doom. He will be 20 in September and Maria will be 18 in July. What Mum will say I just cannot imagine.

At the Yorkshire Rose for Linda's 21st John and Maria announce that they are getting engaged next Saturday. Chris and a few others soon find out that she's pregnant, and Peter M is upset that John won't be able to go on holiday with us in July. Get drunk, and go back afterwards to Maria's until 2.30. They're telling her parents tomorrow and so I'll make myself scarce before the announcement.

And to think that last Wednesday I was joking with Maria about her being pregnant and now it's all true.

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Wednesday January 21, 1976

To the Hare & Hounds with Carole, John, Maria, Chris and Christine. Now that the two Cs are going out again it means that the whole of the 'happy family' are paired off with few exceptions.

For some reason Carole and I forget the squabbling and we get on like in olden times. Have the usual passionate scene at the bus stop and trot off home.

See the late current affairs programme 'Tonight'. A revolting old judge is blubbering away saying that most murders are 'accidental' and that no man really wants to kill another man. This loony has obviously sat in court with his eyes shut for the past 60 years, because even I know otherwise.

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Sunday January 18, 1976

2nd Sunday after Epiphany. I wake at 11am and lay about in bed listening to the radio for an hour. John's bed is still in the same condition it was in at 2 o'clock this morning - unslept in, and I assume that he spent the night at Maria's.

Mum and Dad go off for the afternoon at 12 and Lynn and Dave follow in the same pattern shortly after.

Susan is down at Peter's, and I am left quite alone until Carole comes up at 3pm. I make bacon, sausages and toast for lunch and listen to records until 2, when an Erroll Flynn film based on the 1745 rebellion is screened on the BBC in glorious technicolour. Carole came at 3, and Sue and Peter followed shortly afterwards.

We didn't say much all day really. I can honestly say the more I see her the more I feel we should make a complete break of it. After all, six months is about as much as any man can stomach - when 20 years old anyway.

Miss Linda Smith rang at 6pm to warn me to be 'prompt' at her 21st birthday party on Saturday._________.

We (Carole and I) stay in to watch another film on the BBC and David takes her home at eleven o'clock. No doubt Carole had another good weep on Dave's shoulder when he dropped her at her house. I'll have to question him about it on the morrow.

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Saturday January 17, 1976

Up at 10.30 and do nothing at all all day. Carole comes up at 3 o'clock and we stick more photographs in our album. We then watch an Alastair Sim film on the TV and laughed with Dad at the corn of it all.

We then go for a walk and end up at Maria's to find her in hair curlers and looking hilarious. We leave 30 minutes later after coffee and biscuits. Carole returns to her place and I return home for tea.

I go to Carole's at 8pm and hear that her brother _____ was picked up on a stolen motor bike today, but Carole points no finger of chastisement in his direction and laughs off the whole thing. We go over to the Hare & Hounds tap room with Sue and Peter and stay until 10.30. Carole and I then go through to the lounge where Peter M offers to take us to Oakwood Hall. We go with Pete, Keith, Carol S, and CD. Have a good night, but argue again with Carole about nothing specific. We don't get on at all now and it's only a matter of days before the whole bulwark of our relationship will crumble and crash to the ground. I can't say I'll be sorry because it's been foolish the way I've ignored our differences over the months and we are like chalk and cheese together. Home at 2.30.

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Friday January 16, 1976

I stay in bed until after eleven and wake up feeling greatly improved from my two days break from toiling at the office.

CB rings to discover the nature of my indisposition and I joke with her about going out with Chris again. They went out together last January-February and I remark on the coincidence.

Ring Denny about the holiday booking and she says she and Tony will come up tonight to collect the deposit money.

Denny and Tony come up at 9 and Carole arrives minutes later. I give her the £30 for the deposit and they then took C and I to the Hare for a few drinks. We move on to the Red Lion at Burley-in-Wharfedale where I cut my finger on Tony's car door and at closing time we nip back to Tony's bachelor pad in Burley.________________.

Girls are funny things really. Maria asked Tony when he was going to make a honest woman of Denise & I could have crawled under the carpet. ________________________.

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Monday January 12, 1976

Not a spectacular day at all really. I ring Denny about the San Antonio holiday and she gets us in, provisionally, at the Pacific Hotel. However, when I contact Chris he tells me he is now unable to get July 3-17 for his summer holidays and says he'll ring me tonight. The boy's a failure.

At lunchtime I ring West Yorkshire bus service to make enquiries about the bus service from Kirby Malzeard to Leeds. It isn't as bad as all that and I'm cheered up somewhat by the timetable. Carole rings shortly afterwards and is full of cold. She tells me that she wept herself unconscious in bed last night over the incidents of the weekend and asks me whether I've forgiven her for acting ridiculously. I assure her that I still want to go out with her and arrange to see her at Maria's tonight. I don't think Mrs Mac will like visitors running all over the house at a time like this but Carole insists I go.

Home for tea at 5.45. Sue tells me that Agatha Christie died today. I don't hear anything about this on the news however, and no doubt I will have to wait for the morning papers to announce this sombre news. She was a brilliant writer, and I will always look upon her books with reverence and respect.

Go to Maria's at 8.30 and sit feeling quite ill. A sudden cold seems to have descended upon me. Maria is in high spirits and has taken her grandfather's death very philosophically. Her attitude is that he's in a better place now and he's the last person we should worry about.

John brings me home at 11pm. I've been sat with Carole all night. We didn't say much, but I suppose the trauma of the weekend is very much on our minds.

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Sunday January 11, 1976

1st Sunday after Epiphany. Wake up at about 11.30 for a cooked breakfast with the family and Carole, who passed a peaceful few hours sleep on the lounge sofa.

At 12 o'clock we (David B, Peter, Carole and Maria included) set off for Kirby Malzeard and the Henry Jenkins Inn. I feel a bit wheezy sat in the back of Dad's car and have the windows well wound down thus to encourage the ice cold moorland air to blast against my sickly, hungover-ridden face. Arrive about an hour later and fall in love with the place immediately.

We all want Mum and Dad to get the pub with the exception of Sue and Peter, who keep insisting that it's too far away. We leave at 2.30 after having a stroll round the village and go on to Ripon and then home.

Maria went home to hear that her grandfather (Savage) died at four o'clock this afternoon. He's been in a coma for a few days and I'm sure that it's a blessing really. Nobody should have to suffer like that at 86.

Carole goes home at 7pm and I'm just about sick of our relationship. (Sentence deleted.)

Chris and Peter come at 8pm and we choose some holidays.Ibiza seems to be the likely spot and July 3-17 the dates. At 10 we go down to the Commercial with Dave B for a quick one, two or three.

Home at 11 to discuss the Kirby Malzeard move. Sue and Peter will just have to get used to the idea that they can't live in one anothers laps for the rest of their lives.

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Wednesday January 7, 1976

Make a start to planning the holiday. John doesn't want the girls to come. That is just one of the many simple facts causing problems here. By ditching Maria for the holiday he expects me to also drop Carole for 2 weeks so that we can have a holiday abroad together with Chris, Pete and probably Keith (Brown). I think this is a bit unfair on Carole, who has set her heart on laying besides me on some distant Mediterranean beach this summer.

David L takes Carole and I to Yeadon to see 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'. I saw it at Bradford with Gillian Upton last summer, but still found it absolutely hilarious. Carole is quiet, and I put it down to the fact that I'm going off on holiday without her. She says that Maria wants her to go off to Belfast with her this summer. If she goes she'll be a braver person than I am. Going on holiday for a week and coming back legless, eyeless and armless isn't really my idea of a relaxing break. David too can forsee only danger in the girls chasing off to Ireland for the summer.

Home at 11.30 after calling in at the Clothiers for a quick one. Carole's mood gets me down at times. She's not boisterous like me, and I cannot understand the things that madden her.

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