Sunday January 15, 1978

2nd Sunday after Epiphany. Out of bed at 1:00pm to my rabbit luncheon. I feel really proud. Almost like a Stonehenge warrior must have felt on making his first kill for the table. Something very close to nature and instinctive about killing for ones nosh. It was fabulous too.

Townsend and Margaret.

This afternoon I continued my reading marathon and was just contemplating drifting off to sleep when Mum attracted my attention by suggesting we should go to see Auntie Mabel. We went at 7:00 o'clock. She's in fine fettle and ladens us with food and drink. We sat chatting until after 10.

Items in the news: A famous American politician has gone and died. His name escapes me for the minute. It's something like Lyndon Johnson or Horatio C. Wallace, III. Peter Townsend's first wife, Rosemary, went out  and married Lord Camden, a 80 year-old landowner. The horrid group captain is, at this very moment, spilling the beans on his affair with Princess Margaret. This is unforgivable of him and the desolate princess must be on the verge of ending it all. It is rumoured that Lord Snowdon will marry Mrs Lindsay-Hogg in the Spring.

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Friday January 13, 1978

Friday the Thirteenth. Can't remember whether today is supposed to be lucky or unlucky. One thing's for sure, it was the latter sort of day for Auntie Mabel. In Pudsey whilst out shopping this morning she bumped into her cousin Walter Basham (who is, or was, therefore, also my cousin). She remarked how ill he appeared and he replied: "Yes, Mabel, I don't feel too good" and without further ado he keeled over and died there and then in the street. Mabel is heartbroken. But that's the way to go though. Surely, better than lingering in some disinfected hospital ward for weeks on end?

Carrington's, Harrogate.

This evening Pete M came and we went to the Fox and Hounds. Joined there by Martyn and Chris. Tony was out with _______. From the Fox things went rapidly down hill. Peter wanted to go to Carrington's in Harrogate (where Lynne and I went a couple of times) and so this is where we had to go. A complete flop, so bad that at 12 we shot across the country to Oakwood Hall. I was startled to see how much the place has gone down since my last visit. It was really rough and I wouldn't have minded too much but for the fact that the three of us (Chris had gone home) were dressed up to the nines. Afterwards we dropped Martyn off at Ilkley and came back over the moors. The only profitable thing which took place all night occurred on Hawksworth Moor. Yes, a rabbit fell foul of Peter's van, and it's corpse was duly snatched up and carried off to Pine Tops in readiness for the Sunday dinner. Peter was shaken by the experience. He's not the killing type.

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Wednesday September 22, 1976

News: Unfortunate naval fellows drowned in HMS Littleton yesterday. Rabbit for tea. Superb too. John rings at 6.30 and we all panic, saying unto one another: "Is this it?". But he just says the car has broken down near the Co-op. Papa goes off to see what assistance he can give. _____.

Move back into my bedroom. It now resembles the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. [You know, that was the place where Catherine the Great said: 'Let them eat cake.'] It is splendid though. I had difficulty sleeping though because of those horrid French tourists, herded together like sheep, filing through the place as though it's open to the public. What a liberty! What would Marie Antoinette have said if she'd still been living here? [Didn't she coin the phrase about not being able to have your cake and eat it?] All answers please on a stamped addressed envelope to the King George Fund for Sailors.

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