Thursday May 12, 1977

Met Carole at 7.30 at the White Cross and we got an omnibus to Bradford. The new bus station is like Versailles. All carpeted with piped music, and chandeliers hanging like great foxgloves from the ornate ceilings. In fact it looks as if Bradford City Council have had some help from Rubens or Van Dyck.

Carole is strangely quiet. We laugh at the fact we have to return to Shipley to go on to Bingley and the realisation that the visit to Bradford's 'Hall of Mirrors' could have been avoided is like a blow on the head with a mallet.

In Bingley for 9 o'clock. After a few drinks we walked to Oakwood Hall for 10.15. Peter N was in with his friends again. Carole and I had a good talk about the past year. (Oh shit, the ink is going all the way through the bloody paper for some reason). We decided that we are getting on better this time round. Home in another taxi at 2am. The taxi driver smoked a large cigar and sounded like an Old Etonian. No doubt he's a poor hereditary peer who cannot afford to get down to the House of Lords.

Not seeing Carole until next Thursday. I have thoroughly enjoyed it.

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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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