Friday November 4, 1977

Leeds, or Atlantis?

Refused point blank to enter a place of alcoholic liquid consumption this evening. It is my own personal protest at the increasing rate of alcoholism which has taken place in the United Kingdom in recent times. By 1996 the whole of Yorkshire and Humberside will be submerged beneath a vast lake of lager, Beaujolais and Pennine Bitter. Leeds will be a pickled version of Atlantis.

I phoned Chapel Allerton (Hospital) to enquire about Carole and they told me she was back at Otley (Hospital) and so I phoned that obnoxious place where a nurse told me she is still seriously ill and not seeing vast deputations of visitors but if I want I can make an appointment and pay a brief visit when nobody else is in attendance. I'll go on Thursday next week with a box of chocolates or something. I shall always love her even though I find her exasperating and diametrically opposite to everything logical. Love is weird. I wouldn't have believed it possible that a couple with so much love for each other could make such a tragedy of what could have been an everlasting, idyllic relationship.

Tonight I stayed home with Mum and Lynn. Dad was out on constabulary duties until 10. We watched TV until the power workers plunged us into darkness at 11.06pm. Lynn and I sat laughing by candle light and retired to bed, in good spirits, before 12. The electricity was returned in all its glory at midnight and the evil power workers must have been grinning all over their faces at the success of getting 55 million people into bed.

-=-

Tuesday November 1, 1977

I am writing this, dear reader, by candle light. Those nice electricity supply people are asking for more money than the miserable 10 per cent offered by Mr Callaghan, and because he's taking his time giving them the cash, they are in return giving us a dose of the old black-out treatment. I bet it's bringing back lovely memories for Ted Heath and his enfeebled colleagues.

Anne: Duchess of Sussex?

Susan is sat sewing by flickering candlelight; Lynn is in bed reading by torch-light to the sound of Radio Luxembourg (which, thank God, is beyond the scheming clutches of the ghastly power workers). I only hope that for the sake of children throughout the land the electricity will remain off on Nov 4 and Nov 5 so that that Mischief Night and Bonfire Night will be well remembered.

The Daily Express today carried a story riddled with errors on the subject of royal births. Mistake one was that Princess Anne was born at Buckingham Palace, when in fact her birth took place at Clarence House; mistake 2, was that the presence of the Home Secretary at the birth of a royal baby was only dispensed with at the birth of Prince Edward in 1964 - when in fact King George VI scrapped this custom in Oct 1948 just before the Prince of Wales was born. I persuaded Sarah to phone the Buckingham Palace press office to confirm this, which she did, and she was told that 'His Majesty found the whole business archaic'.

We have just been discussing (still by candlelight, at 9.20pm) the possibility of the 6th person in the line of succession (to the throne) being a 'Master Phillips' and both Mum and I don't like the idea one bit. We decided that Princess Anne should be created a duchess, so that the infant cane come into the world as a marquess or earl, but nobody in 1977 takes much notice of reactionary swines like what we are.

The lights came on as if by magic at 9.55 and the television disrupted our peerage chatter.Dad was relieved because our deliberating as to whether Princess Anne is to be Duchess of Sussex or not is of no interest to him.


-=-