Tuesday November 13, 1979

_. Tomorrow is the birthday of the Prince of Wales. His thirty first. He is to attend a concert by Shirley Bassey at Wembley, but no delightful deb is included in his party. Whatever the gossip columnists might say he isn't taking Sabrina, Davina, Rowena or Mavis. The poor man must be sick to death of the constant badgering and speculation. Blimey, he is only 31, and yet the Press seems to have given up hope of ever seeing 'action man' take a bride. Charles's cousin, Prince Michael of Kent, was 36, my Uncle Peter was 35, and Sir Cecil Beaton remains single at 70. So, all is not lost.

Lynn and Dave came to dinner tonight. Afterwards I was very rude and when we all retired to the sitting room I buried my head behind 'The Times' which appeared today for the first time in almost a year. Thank God it's back. Sue took to her bed at 11 but Pete stayed until 12:15, and we watched a dreadful film about an air crash. Bed with Hitler at 12:30.

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Monday November 12, 1979

_. Can I talk about Senator Edward Kennedy and then Mrs Margaret Thatcher? The senator is most certainly the next president of the United States, but Mother doesn't seem to think so. I am of the opinion that anyone with the surname Kennedy can do nothing but succeed in American politics. Mother says that the fact that Teddy murdered his girlfriend in 1969 rules him out of the race. As we all know, Americans like their presidents to be bent, crooked and twisted. My chauffeur, Jim, says that the sitting president commands tremendous power over his party and that it would be unprecedented for the Democrats to discard the president and select some other candidate. However, the word is that Carter now is more unpopular than Nixon was in his final days after Watergate, and that Carter's credibility is nil. We shall see.

My next subject is our dearly beloved prime minister. Isn't she doing well? Tonight she addressed the Lord Mayor of London's banquet and gave a performance almost Churchillian in its stature. Listening to her tonight made me so aware that at last we have a leader. We actually have someone of stature at the helm. Harold Macmillan has likened Thatcher to Queen Elizabeth I.

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Sunday November 11, 1979

_. Remembrance Sunday
    22nd Sunday after Trinity

Spent a long day at Club Street with Ally and Dave the Sailor. I am besotted with Ally's stereo machine. So much so that I now aspire to be a Radio 1 DJ like that great man Tony Blackburn.

Dave is a decent chap, and I do feel very sorry for him because I think he thought his weekend with Ally would follow a different course. After all, we do know what sailors are, don't we? Poor boy. I doubt whether he will be quick to return, even though he has been made very welcome. Ally is of the same opinion.

The spitfire remains incapacitated and so at 7, we happy threesome, took a bus to the White Cross and had fish and chips. By now Dave the Sailor is so subdued I am feeling uneasy. We were so relieved when a bus came at 10 and took him off to Leeds. Saw Ally onto a bus back to Bradford at 10:30 and walked home in the rain. Hilda and Tony are being entertained by Mum and Dad. Uncle Tony is now a Rotarian.

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Saturday November 10, 1979

_. Dave the Sailor arrived. Out this evening with Sue, Peter, Ally and the sailor to the White Cross. Many of the locals are heavily bandaged, covered in bruises, and missing vital limbs. The landlord explained that a recent brawl had raged in the hostelry which had resulted in nothing short of a massacre.

We went back to Pine Tops with wine for further revelries. Out to the Woolpack at Yeadon with Sue and Pete. They took us to a house party on the Coppice Wood estate. We bumped into Jill and Tim and they came along to the party. Today is Tim's 20th birthday. The host of the party, a miserable soul, reigned over the proceedings. The sailor had a fracas with another guest and so we made a speedy exit. Jill and Tim carried us off to Bradford taking lots of booze from the party in the back of his van.

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Friday November 9, 1979

_. Ally phoned me this afternoon to see what I intended doing this weekend. I told her I would ring back in the evening after Dave the Sailor's arrival. I worked until 5pm and then went over to the Eagle Tavern on North Street with Dave Pitts and Steve Burnip to Bob Cockroft's party. [He is defecting from the EP to the YP and is to be Fred Manby's replacement on the People column]. I only intended having a couple of drinks, just to be sociable, and my financial situation is far from healthy, but the paralysing effect of alcohol rendered me insensitive to respectable banter, and I rolled around the walls sloshing Timothy Taylor's ale  over all and sundry. Home by bus at 10:30. I went to see Margaret Phillips at the fish and chip shop on Victoria Road. She came across as cheerful, but said something to the effect  that she occasionally feels her late husband's presence in the vicinity of the deep fat fryer. A framed portrait of the late John Phillips takes pride of place above the list of shop prices. At home I'm still quite pissed. Watched John Cleese and Michael Palin in discussion with Bishop Mervin Stockwood and Malcolm Muggeridge on the subject of the new [Monty] Python epic, 'The Life of Brian'. It's a film I cannot wait to see.

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Thursday November 8, 1979

_. Out with Sarah at 12 to Da Mario's for a belated birthday nosh.  She was in a better frame of mind today. it is good to be seen out with Sarah walking around the town. Sarah in her finest furs. We do attract a few turned heads and envious glances because she is an imposing lady.

No buses, and so I got a train at 5:20 in pouring rain. Took a bath and went out with Lynn and Dave to Ally's at 7 for dinner. She dished up a splendid dinner of prawn cocktails, steak, strawberries, &c, and the wine flowed in usual abundance. We left at almost 2am. Lynn joked about 'Dave the Sailor' arriving tomorrow which wasn't well received.

Dave the sailor is from Devon, but an old friend of Ally's from Winchester. He contacted Ally a few weeks ago to say he was going on leave, and that he wanted to 'be smothered' in Yorkshire hospitality. Ally agreed to this without giving it too much thought. She's like that, isn't she? Dave is all very well propping up the bar in the Plough. He's quite manageable there, but is it right that he should be in Ally's house, just the two of them? Does the sailor have designs on the dear girl?

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Wednesday November 7, 1979

_. Sarah's 27th birthday. She refused to celebrate or be even remotely cheerful, but I gave a large card with a verse of my own composition. I can be quite poetic, you know.

Jennifer Myers, the wife of my cousin Derek [son of my mother's sister, Eleanor] gave birth to a son today. I believe the baby is to be called Oliver, but this has yet to be confirmed. Hardly an earth shattering event for me because my cousins, and half cousins number over fifty. My poor mother was a great-aunt at 28.

Adolf Hitler continues to provide great entertainment on these long, autumnal evenings. I don't despise the chap either, which is odd. No, I am no fascist or National Front supporter. Hitler may have been mad, but then so was the German population for tolerating him.

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Tuesday November 6, 1979

_. Back to the grindstone. In fact the YP is nothing short of a labour camp. One might as well emigrate to Czechoslovakia and lend support to the Charter 77 malarkey, because my working conditions are no better than those of your average commie dissident in a cheap eastern bloc republic.

No work seems to have been done in the office since I left for my weekend break on Friday lunchtime. I worked from 5pm. Poor Gilberto is having trouble with the news desk. Chris Oakley, for all his south American wanderings, is making rude and heated noises in high places re Gilberto's command of the Queen's English.

My taxi driver this evening was a deaf mute.

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Monday November 5, 1979

_. Took our leave of Chillandham Cross at about 11:30. Up to Oxford and then to Woodstock, where we had a couple of drinks in the empty pub there. Blenheim Palace is closed until March next year, not that we had time to inspect the Oxfordshire culture anyway. The northward journey saw a deterioration in the weather, and freezing rain pelted the car as we trundled along. We emerged from the car at Stratford-on-Avon to inspect the town. My first visit to the home town of the Bard since December, 1974, when I joined Dave L and his college cronies on a marathon pub crawl. We went round the town like Dickensian urchins staring into restaurants and breathing heavily on cake shop windows. Heading up the M1 at 6:30 we saw almost every bonfire north of Watford. Smoke drifted over the motorway.

Ally is a petal.

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Sunday November 4, 1979

_. 21st Sunday after Trinity

To the Plough at lunch with Ally, Graham and Gill. It's an afternoon soiree for Graham who is resigning as barman to become an executive in Gloucestershire. Gill and I sat with pale and ghastly faces, gently moaning. A pity really because the salmon and hot punch looked very good. Ally ate like a horse and put away my share. I was very happy to quit the pub at 4:30 though.

The evening was weird and peculiar. To a dinner party at Graham Smith's place. [He was Ally's boss when she was employed at Wessex Area Health Authority]. We sat down to dine but only Ally and I ate. They watched, saying they were dieting. Who the bloody hell throws a dinner party and refuses to eat? Charlotte fussed over her cats, Oscar and Biggles, kissing them with nauseating regularity. Strange and odd, but aren't they all odd in Hampshire?

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Saturday November 3, 1979

_. Today we went to lunch - the whole clan - and sat eating long overdue toasties next to a roaring log fire. Fiona is a miniature version of her mother. Ally and I then went supposedly shopping into Winchester, but having little money bought nothing.

This evening out with Graham and Gill to Tolworth near Guildford. After drinking in a couple of taverns we went on to a house party at the flat of Graham's friend, Richard. Crowded. The wine flowed. A revolting tart with a plum her mouth actually suggested to me that Hadrian's Wall ought to be demolished and re-erected at Watford. 'Good idea', quipped I: 'We don't want the likes of you venturing up north.' Drank far too much wine with Gill. Ally didn't drink because she was at the wheel of Mrs D's car. I was hideously sloshed. Home at 5am.

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Friday November 2, 1979

_. Ally came to Leeds at 12:30 and we were soon on the road to Winchester. The car was packed and rattled along like Stephenson's Rocket. I was starving, not having eaten all day, but was banned from snacking until we reached the designated picnic site at Bladon in Oxfordshire. We arrived at 5 and inspected the church yard wherein lay the remains of Winston and Clem and various other Churchills. Such ordinary, mundane, unobtrusive tombs considering such great bones rot beneath, yet moving in a strange way. A pathetic looking white bouquet had been placed on Winston's white slab. I took a few photos but felt uneasy photographing gravestones.

We sat giggling in the car eating edam cheese with some violence and tormented the village cat who came to investigate. I wanted to make a Martini, but it was hardly the time or place. On to Winchester for 6:30. Barbara and Frank are there with daughter, Fiona, aged 10.  Mrs Dixon fussed in her usual manner. On to the Ship at Alresford and then the Plough at Itchen Abbas.

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Thursday November 1, 1979

_. November at last. The season of fireworks and falling foliage. I almost said tis the season for scarlet clad Yeomen of the Guard to file through the dark cellars of the Palace of Westminster in search of some foul plot, but Her Majesty is giving it a miss this autumn. One state opening of Parliament in June is quite enough for one year.

Ally came over and so does Lynn, without Dave, who is at home in bed with one of his headaches. Lynn blames the malady on the pork pie he had for lunch.

Jim and Margaret came later.

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Wednesday October 31, 1979

_. I suppose I really should say a few words just to be sociable if nothing else. But no.

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Tuesday October 30, 1979

_. I am an observant little chap, you know. Scanning through the Daily Telegraph BMDs I spotted the engagement of Sabrina Guinness's sister Julia, and then informed Claudia, standing in for Fred Manby on the People column. Miss Guinness is set to marry Michael Samuel, the Jewish nephew of Viscount Bearsted. The Prince of Wales attended a ball at Wilton House on Saturday where Sabrina and her twin Miranda were in the swing of thing. Some sad organs of the press were expecting an engagement announcement. People should be aware that royal betrothals are announced from Buckingham Palace in the age old tradition. The Prince of Wales doesn't turn up at a party and become engaged.

Spoke to Ally this afternoon. She had not spoken to Michelle [at WH Smith Travel] and our holiday is still in the air. It was a bad line. She sounded to be speaking from Apollo 13.

Peter came at 7:30 with a sheep's head in a polythene bag. Mum's eyes lit up with excitement, even more than the poor sheep's. We must be one of the few families in existence to devour the facial parts and brain material of that woolly, four legged moorland animal. For generations peasants in the area must have found it to be a delicacy, but now it is looked upon with derision and abuse. We are labelled pagan. Such a shame.

To bed with Hitler.

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Monday October 29, 1979

_. Delia phoned to say that July 26, 1980, is her aunt's golden wedding party, and because of this she probably won't be able to do Sue's wedding flowers. This will be a serious break with tradition. She will let me know for certain later in the week when she returns from Kettering.

I spoke to Ally this afternoon. Nothing of interest to report here.

On the way to work this morning I had a lecture from Jim [Rawnsley] on the subject of women. I should not, he says, be put off by selecting a girl who is painfully thin. They can easily be fattened up to desirable proportions. I should steer well clear of ladies of a plump disposition. They will only grow fatter, and swell to obesity with the passage of time. She must, he stressed, be of a happy and amiable disposition and in my case should be no more than eighteen or nineteen years old. He also stated that I should cling on to my bachelorhood until I am at least 32. This is because Jim was himself 32 when he succumbed to Muriel. Of course, he went on, when one passes the age of 30 the suitable desirables can become very thin on the ground. Jim's splendid wife is of course ten years Jim's junior.

Meanwhile at home: messing about with the clocks [which we do without fail at the autumn equinox] brought about a peculiar phenomenon. I found myself in bed at the early hour of 10:30pm with a milky drink and Adolf Hitler.

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Sunday October 28, 1979

_. 20th Sunday after Trinity

Bright and autumnal. Out of bed at 10:30. They have no Sunday newspapers at Lawn Road but Lynn is a splendid substitute. The Bakers really do need a little red cheeked baby to complete the scene.

At 12 we set out and walked to Burley Woodhead, and an enjoyable stroll it was. We haven't had a morning ramble since we were in Martyr Worthy.

In the afternoon Lawn Road was a hive of industry. Lynn took to the kitchen to bake pies and tarts, Dave laid a fire in the grate, and Ally knitted away at an obscene canary yellow woollen object. Watched an old film on the TV. Gary Cooper in 'Marco Polo' [1938]. Chris Baker and Julie came to tea. Ally and I left at 8:30 and we had fish and chips before she ejected me from her automobile.

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Saturday October 27, 1979

_. Breakfast at Burley. Dave went off to Pine Tops to help Dad work on the car. Lynn, Ally and I went to Otley supposedly shopping but found the Black Bull a more attractive proposition. Drank pernod, &c. Rick Ryder and fellow work-mates joined us. We were very bawdy and uncouth.

Ally went to Curlew Pottery to buy some hideous crockery for Charlotte Pavier.

Out tonight to the Queen's in Burley and then the Red Lion. Dave had returned by this time. Back at Lawn Road we all sat on Lynn and Dave's bed watching an Alec Guinness film.

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Friday October 26, 1979

_. Ally came at 8:30. She was miserable and dull. Out with Sue and Pete to the White Cross. She said she is sick of the place and so we moved on to the Chevin Inn, and crammed into the sardine-tin shaped bar. Ally's mood did not improve. She snapped and growled like a wounded Jack Russell terrier. Her attitude only provoked me. From the Chevin we went to the Red Lion at Burley-in-W.
We went on to Lynn's at 11:15 [where Ally is booked in for the weekend]. drinks and sandwiches here.

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Thursday October 25, 1979

_. Dave G and Garry are very happy with the Es Pla. I thought they would go along with whatever we decided. The holiday situation for next year is a joke. It's only October and most hotels are fully booked.

Ally and I went to the Drop. No Oakwood Hall, or fancy drinks. We need £20 for deposits for the holiday. This seriously interferes with our social life.

Home at 11. Mum and Dad are at Hilda and Tony's until the early hours. A Jim and Margaret match away from home.

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