Friday August 17, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

We went out to forms for new passports.

The King of Spain has been over here in a private capacity shooting with Lord Strathmore at his Teesdale estate. Lord Strathmore is of course a cousin of HM. Watch this space. Are they perhaps contemplating  making a willowy Bowes Lyon lady Queen of Spain? They do make good queens.

Recent arrival: a son to the Countess of Erroll.

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Thursday August 16, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Hot. Mum phoned to say Benjamin's heart is on the blink. A murmur, or something. The lad is under observation. Poor Sue. I phoned her - she wasn't too worried. They are now looking at a house on Thorpe Lane but it's too expensive. Ally phoned Lynn for a bulletin. She has been having the occasional 'twinges' and restless nights, but no nearer delivering. I would like a Baker nephew. It would be too dreadful for David to spend the rest of his life surrounded by women. To Linfood and then Club Street. We have another leak. A communication says we finish paying for the house in November, 1989. Phoned Lanzarote and got no joy. They were out. It's Sheila's birthday today and I guess they are at the Vic having peppered steaks. I am looking forward to a holiday in the sun. Ally was made to be brown. 

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Wednesday August 15, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Ally stayed upstairs cooking. Our food supplies were extinguished after the locusts here this afternoon. (We took £31!) The aroma of curry drifted down on the night air. Just Audrey and I worked 8-11.

HRH The Princess Anne is 34 today. What a little grafter she is. A much maligned princess who, at last, is getting a fair deal from the press - except for the divorce rumours which are ridiculous, &c. I do wish HM would give the princess a peerage and thereby elevate the children from the gutter. Master Peter goes to a Dorset prep-schoool next term. The children are with grandmama at Balmoral with Princess Margaret and a solitary Prince Andrew. What became of Carolyn Herbert? Koo Stark marries the Green Shield Stamps heir this week (sigh of relief). Poor Andrew must be lonely.

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Tuesday August 14, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Ally, Marnie & Samuel.

Extremely hot. Very busy lunch. We packed up at 2 and rushed to Tadcaster to the so-called Sam Smith's 'Family Day' at the Bowling Club. I took a football kit but had no intention of playing. We almost ran over Mr. Oliver (Smith) at the brewery. That would have caused a stink. The awful Pirie family were in front of us with Tracey Egan. We found the bar and hid in a corner with Roy, Marie and Marnie. Leslie Gledhill came looking for me to play football but I hid and avoided the tortuous, sweaty and ridiculous exercise. Roy wasn't himself, but Marie bright and bubbly. They are having William trouble again. We ate roast pig and kept ourselves to ourselves. The arse lickers are nauseating. Fran O'Brien was prancing around in shorts. Silly little prat. Home for 8 quite pissed. We stood at the bar. Margaret and Karen worked.

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Monday August 13, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Maureen returned from her holiday. Ann Wilkinson, 70, can be painful, and so it was good to see dear, lumbering Maureen. I phoned the brewery and spoke to Ken Gilbertson about our holiday days for this year and he said we cannot take any days until October 29. Sigh, gasp, pant. We shall have to take our three remaining weeks then. When Ally and I were discussing this at lunch Samuel began to choke on a crust of bread. The poor boy turned blue and we plucked him from his high chair and dangled him upside down. This did the trick. Quite a panic we had, but the boy didn't seem to bother.

Olive came in pissed tonight and was too vocal in the sedate lounge. Big Brian likens our panelled lounge to the House of Lords.

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Sunday August 12, 1984

Orpheus & the leopard, Harewood.

 8th Sunday after Trinity

Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Hot and indecisive. Just where can we go on our day orf? In a flash I exclaimed: 'Let's go to Harewood'. After all it was here at the seat of the reprobate Lascelles family that Ally and I spent hours of courtship on illicit days off from the YP. Our journey to Harewood was a smooth one. Sammy beaming in his car seat, the wind blowing through his top knot. We fell upon the Harewood Arms and that did it, we sat there in the garden with a tray of sandwiches. Bliss. Howard Rose, the wiry landlord, said hello but didn't come to chat. We didn't care. Sammy wearing a cap like Jackie Coogan. 

Later, back here, I sat with my feet up watching a Joan Crawford film. Didn't go downstairs. The girls managed. A hot, roasting day, and sweaty night. Children in car park made the place sound Belle Vue Zoo. Roll on wintertime and inclement weather.

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Saturday August 11, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

A full Moon, but I fear no ill effects. The sudden and indiscriminate growth of facial hair and teeth did not occur. We went in to Leeds with Samuel and took Ally's locket to a jeweller (Samuel having recently dislodged it from mum's chain). It was a sticky afternoon really. We did the usual rounds of Mothercare and Boots, &c. We went on to Cheap 'n Cheerful to see Mrs Whitehead, who dotes on Samuel. We wandered around debating buying £300 bedroom furniture, but came away with a Compton Mackenzie novel and the Universal Home Doctor (Illustrated), and a book, 'The Corpse in the Constable's Garden'.

We lunched with Jim Ellis at the Nags Head and sat outside. Our barman has resigned 'for taxation reasons'. Who does he think he is? Earl Jermyn? I am very dubious about the worth of his YOP scheme. It might be worth a memo to Mrs Thatcher. Phoned Mummy. John and Peter Mather on the Three Peaks Walk and lodging at Waltergarth.

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Friday August 10, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn

Sandy (left) and chum.

My first guinea pig, Sandy, was born 20 years ago today. Blimey, what a brain I have. What a memory.

Our christening photographs are, to say the least, uninspiring. Dull, dismal and foggy. I took them down and showed them to Bernie who thinks they are worthy of Lord Snowdon and she sat gasping in amazement. One must always be prepared for sycophants in this game. 

Christening: uninspiring, dull & foggy.

Coffee and sandwiches upstairs at 12. Bedtime reading is Burke's Peerage. How I long for the 1985 edition. If the Duke of Westminster kicked the bucket tomorrow what would happen? The dukedom would expire and the marquisate of Westminster would go first to the Earl of Wilton and at his decease to Lord Ebury. 

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Thursday August 9, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Dad & Mum: June 1984.

What can they be doing at Horton-in-Ribblesdale? I feel miffed that no contact has been made since July 22. Did I say something out of place? Come to think of it Mama wasn't too jovial at the party and stayed indoors which was uncharacteristic  when all the party goers were without clutching glasses of gin, &c. I must telephone. Ally is puzzled. Mama, she says, hasn't once phoned us since we moved here. Not long ago she was always on the blower. 

Ally took Sammy to be weighed . He is 15lb 5oz. Splendid. He has never had any fat about him and where some babies look podgy and docile he is slender, ahtletic and alert. A budding Daley Thompson. A white one though. 

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Wednesday August 8, 1984

Moorhouse Inn

Rumanian weightlifter.

We had eggs for breakfast with the backdrop of the Olympics on the TV. Fat Rumanian weightlifters and toast and marmalade don't mix. Later we went out with Sammy in his landau to the shops on Dewsbury Rd and bought steak and kidney and slices of plastic ham. You can now count on one hand the days in a week when I go out into the fresh air. 

Jackie Myers is 28 tomorrow. _______. We haven't seen her since she squabbled with Elaine Allinson on the subject of the Falklands crisis at Ally's birthday party in May '82. 

Arrivals: A son to the Earl and Countess of Dalkeith - a 21st century Duke of Buccleuch in fact.

Departures: Lord Monkswell, who renounced his peerage in 1964 when it was a fashionable thing to do. He is, I can safely say, the first peer to die who has renounced his title under the 1963 Peerages Act. His fellow disclaimers are Home, Sandwich, Stansgate, Hailsham, Altrincham, Merthyr, Fraser of Allander, Beaverbrook, and who else? - Durham.

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Tuesday August 7, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

My poor great-uncle John Edward Rhodes was killed in action upon this day in 1918. He was a private in the Royal Fusiliers, but as to where he met his glorious end I do not know. My knowledge of the Great War is nil other than that I know it kicked off in 1914 and ran through until 1918 and that we won. Mrs Lane would be proud of me.

We had eggs and bacon with Sue and Peter and the children and hung around for the morning. Christopher slobbered over the two others in a most overpowering fashion. Kissing and cuddling like members of the England cricket team. They went at 11 leaving us surrounded by debris and devastation. Quite appropriate for the anniversary of Hiroshima. 

The sombre Karen worked solo tonight. Ally and I stood at the bar whispering together. Sweet nothings, &c. Rob Piper and his Scottish friend came in. The Scottish friend is married to a Longbottom from St James's Cresent (Pudsey). We spent an hour with them and they left at 10:20 to get back to the Butcher's Arms for last orders. Pushing it a bit. Rob has a new Italian car which Ally went out and inspected.  Old Harold told me of an encounter he had with the former Lord Lieutenant (of West Yorkshire) Brigadier Hargreaves, who he says owned all the coal mines in Leeds before nationalisation. The chap (Harold) is a crashing snob.

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