Friday September, 14, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Woodbine Lizzie.

Hungover again. I was horrible but Ally was quite composed and up and counting money reasonably early. People came in gloating at the 'failure' of our fancy dress evening but we certainly do not consider it to have been a failure and fully intend throwing another such extravaganza in the coming weeks. At 10:30 last night Karen stepped out of line with Ally and walked out in the following rumpus. Good riddance. It was a comical sight because Ally, clad in her hideous gear, looked just like 'Woodbine Lizzie' the renowned eccentric Leeds character. Alison Rhodes is not to be crossed. and Karen Pratt did it once too often. The staff tonight were subdued. Sometimes one needs a good sacking to keep them all to heel. Dave the Grave denies theft and went away red faced.

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Thursday September 13, 1984

Edna at the bar.

with Marlene and Frank

Jayne and Janette

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Our Tramps Convention fancy dress party. A busy bustling day. We went out late this afternoon to a Spastics Society charity shop on Boar Lane and bought Ally a revolting shimmering green dress for £1. She is going to be a particularly well-heeled tramp. We had Sammy Bear tucked up in bed for 5:30 and I dressed in vagrants gear and went down to amuse Maureen and the trio in the tap room.

Tramps: with George and John.

    We stood around sipping Blue Bols and lemonade waiting for more tramps, but they proved very scarce. Edna and Tracey looked splendid but nobody else suitably garbed appeared until John, Janette, George and Jayne, Jacq and her latest boyfriend Philip came in wearing old overcoats spattered with driend mud. Howls of laughter, &c. MM and Marita came too - but dressed up to the nines, fresh back from Yugoslavia. We awarded the first prize to Edna, but sadly Dave the Grave ripped us off and disappeared with the raffle money, or at least £5 of it. He is another one who will have to go. Marlene and Frank came in covered in dirt and stick on boils. We sold fish and chips in newspaper. They didn't go down well and we only four people bought them - miserable bastards. A late night followed. No customers. Just family and the Waites and a volatile couple who kept slapping each other like frenzied animals. MM and Marita looked on aghast. It was good to see Jacq with a young man. Later on he too was walking around in a state of undress and the general state of everyone can only be described as debauched. John had a greasy head of hair and in his old overcoat he resembled Clark Gable or Gary Cooper from some '30s movie. The party fell apart at 2am when George went into a coma. John was, of course, driving. We are told the Waites are contemplating divorce.

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Wednesday September 12, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

The new secretary of state for Ulster (sic) is poor Douglas Hurd. What can she (Thatcher) have against this little Foreign Office mandarin? A new appointment is David Young who becomes minister without portfolio, a privy counsellor and a life peer. He is to get the unemployed back to work - poor bugger. He doesn't stand a cat in hell's chance. The Earl of Gowrie becomes chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. I think that this government has more peers in its make up than any other government since before the Great War. I do admire Mrs T. The pathetic SDP are meeting at Buxton - and oh God you should hear them droning on. A bloody pantomime. They are on the fast train to oblivion. Nobody takes them seriously or sees them as a threat. As for Dr David Owen - Ugh!

Lord Geoffrey-Lloyd is dead. A peculiar obit in the Daily Telegraph says: "he never married but he had for many years, a close entirely platonic friendship with Leeds Castle." You couldn't have much else with an ancient monument, could you?

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Tuesday September 11, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Another flat night. Karen worked. Money for old rope, &c. Ally was trapped in a conversation with 'FA' and his dotty wife. (He's called FA for his unfortunate sticking out ears - he resembles the FA Cup). I found myself in the tap room sitting with the three inmates of that derelict room watching Mel Brooks's 'High Anxiety' - first saw it years ago at the cinema with Jacq Sate. Still hilarious. Ally not happy with Karen. The girl has to be directed at every customer. We should perhaps club together and buy the girl a labrador and a white stick.

The PM has seen the Queen and announced a re-shuffled cabinet. Ally tells me that the new secretary of state for Northern Ireland is a Denis something or other. Could it be Denis Thatcher?

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Monday September 10, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Ally: in the tap room (1984)

Took Samuel to see Granny and Grandad in bed and I went down to 'bottle-up' &c. They fuss over him a great deal. After a meagre breakfast Dad took Samuel out in his pram and the boy looked wonderful in his woolly hat and pullover. They were gone for over an hour and had a tour of the neighbourhood. Dad harnessed him into a swing in the park and gave him one or two gentle pushes. Mum and Dad stayed to luncheon and left at 4 or 5pm. We had a pool knock-out tonight but the place was hideously dead. Never mind. 

We think it would be nice to conceive Clementine in Lanzarote ~ with God's aid of course.

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Sunday September 9, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

12th Sunday after Trinity

Ally spent all day in bed after the debauchery of last night. I got up and gave Samuel breakfast, did the tills, and bottled up. It's all go. This afternoon I slept on the settee with the Sunday Telegraph over my face. Mummy and Daddy came after 6. Samuel played with them for a while and then went off to bed and slept soundly. It was a vile, wet evening. Dad and I went out and spent £10 on the Chinese take-away food and returned to watch 'Lace' a small screen adaptation of that awful Shirley Conran book. We sent Dad downstairs for drinks and he came back with a traty at frequent intervals. To bed by 12 or so.  They looked well, but Mum is never quite herself these days. Why?

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Saturday September 8, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

To Club Street and then Cheap 'n Cheerful. A French antiques dealer has bought up all Mrs Whitehead's chests to export. Don't they have pine in the Loire Valley? At Club St we sat on the floor and ate fish and chips ~ even Sammy Bear. Didn't see Mary (Moore).

Tonight was quiet and dull. Ally and I were in the tap room at 10 o'clock when in walked John & Janette with George and Jayne Waite. A riotous night followed. We sat in the lounge after time talking about funerals, holidays, &c. ________. Upstairs we played records and woke Samuel, who came in wide-eyed to see us. Later we showed them our pine four poster bed and we all leapt around upon it. George has a spanking fettish and he gave Janette a red rear.

Prince William is on the front page of the Daily Telegraph looking boyish and podgy. He was flying back to London with the Prince of Wales. Diana is already back south. No doubt the baby will come next week. The Daily Star says the baby us due on September 26, but this date will have been thrown into the mix to fool the prying press. Are we going to have a Princess Victoria Elizabeth?

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Friday September 7, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Ally stayed upstairs cleaning. Mum phoned to say she and Papa are coming here on Sunday to stay overnight and so Ally beavered around today getting the place ship-shape. Dave the Grave was throwing darts downstairs and asked for Ally to come down and play with him. The man is going to become something of a pain. I went about the pub recruiting 'tramps' for next week and got a luke warm reception. My God, most of them look like tramps already. Stood for a while with Brian. He always brings me a copy of the Craven Herald because of our connection with Horton-in-Ribblesdale. Little Mavis is quite a glass smasher. You can hear them smashing all over the pub.

Peerage News: A heir for the Sheffield baronetcy; a child for Lady Saltoun's daughter and a direct heir to that peerage, and of course another descendant for Queen Victoria through Arthur, Duke of Connaught, &c. Lady Mary Gilmour lies dead - daughter of the 3rd Duke of Abercorn, sister of the late Countess Spencer, and a great-aunt of the Princess of W. Viscount Petersham has married Anita, Lady Suffolk & Berkshire.

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Thursday September 6, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Samuel was weighed yesterday at the clinic on Beeston Hill, and weighed in at 16lb 4oz. He is a tiny, but well put together chap. He is fattening out but shows no signs of sprouting teeth. He regularly claps his hands, and rocks backwards and forwards as he moves around the flat, but will not crawl. He may decide to move backwards (JPH did) because he tends to plunge backwards for his toys, &c. He topples and bangs his head countless times a day, but cries about this less and less.

World News: Canada has a new prime minister. The Prince of Wales is to feature on the BBCs 'Jackanory' telling the tale of 'The Old Man of Lochnagar'. I do hope that HRH isn't lowering the monarchy too much. Sometimes I wonder. I avoided the Laitner murder trial today because I wanted to enjoy my tea.

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Wednesday September 5, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

I rarely look at crime articles in the newspapers but today I've been reading of the Laitner murder trial and feel quite sick. Three people were viciously butchered in Sheffield last October, after a wedding. The beast who did this should die. Until we decide to 'do away' with these animals I see no future for civilization. In other news the Daily Telegraph carries obituaries of a VC and a GC holder. 

Neil Kinnock addressed the TUC yesterday and was pathetic. Of course he had a standing ovation, but Oh dear, he was messy. The Rt Hon Len Murray goes this week. No doubt he'll be Viscount Murray by the New Year. There's been a comical accident in the moorland heather. Lord Whitelaw has accidentally shot a boring industrialist on Lord Strathmore's grouse moor.

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Tuesday September 4, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

We are very cross about Peter Nason. Like lots of people - he has an aversion to credit. I see nothing wrong with accepting a loan from a relative, do you? I was putting on no charges or added interest and didn't expect to be paid back until 1987, or even early in the next century. But oh no Peter has to afford and to pay for everything himself. Pride. It's a tiresome thing. Will 21 Thorpe Lane become theirs? Ally thinks the holiday is now spoiled because Samuel would have had the company of his cousins, and now he'll be the only child there.

Ally and I worked tonight without staff. Karen is away in the Lake District. We annoy our customers because we are so unpredictable in our actions. The OAPs are nervous and edgy.

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