Tuesday October 6, 1981

 _. Hideous day. Heavy rain. Left Ally in bed at 7:45. Dr Glover visted her at 10, who told her that she has suffered a miscarriage, and that the loss most likely occurred on September 26. Poor Darling. _____. He did say that depending on a test she might have to go into hospital. He told her to stay in bed.

I got home from work at 6 and we sat on the bed together. Mum and Dad called in and stayed until after 8. Dad took me to the fish and chip shop and bought my dinner. We discussed demolishing and re-arranging the kitchen.

Ally, reclining on the settee, propped up by cushions, is very stoic. If an unborn child was developing badly, it is best that it has gone.

News: President Sadat of Egypt was assassinated this afternoon in Cairo. It's only a month since the Prince and Princess of Wales entertained him on the Royal Yacht Britannia. The Middle East will now be in turmoil.

Watched TV. The Horse of the Year Show on the BBC gave way to 'Sadat is Dead' with the Dimbleby circus. It's a fact that I am more aware of the Middle East crisis that our Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, who is sleeping in his bed, blissfully unaware, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Australia.

Such a horrible day.

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Monday October 5, 1981

 _. Up at 6:30 but ignored the alarm clock until 7:20. Ally, exhausted, remained under her pink quilt. I went to Leeds and phoned Dr Gover. His receptionist went to talk to him and came back with the message that he'll call and see Ally 'one day this week' and that she should remain in bed. She can't go to bed indefinitely - what will Derek Jenkins say?

YP gloomy. 'Mrs Slocombe' has moved into the Cookridge home of ex-President Jimmy Carter look-alike. Sarah announced that 'I might never marry', in a manner somewhat reminiscent of Queen Elizabeth I.

Phoned Mum about Ally. She likes a daily bulletin. The three piece suite returns today from the re-upholsterers. The Pine Tops sitting room now resembles Woburn Abbey.

Home at 6 to find Ally preparing dinner, a casserole. We ate by candlelight. We sat afterwards reading the newspapers. Lord Harewood's autobiography has been published. Did he really kill the poor Princess Royal with his divorce news?

Beethoven, coffee, and Charles Dickens.

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Sunday October 4, 1981

 _. 16th Sunday after Trinity

Warm and bright. A fine day for a baptism. We spent all morning in bed. Auntie Hilda phoned to say that the photographer at Jill and Tim's wedding had forgotten to put a film in his camera on the day. Jill is grief stricken.

The parish church.

To Burley with Mum and Dad at 2:30. Joined by Sue [the godmother], Peter, Chris Baker [the godfather], and Julie, and a host of other unmentionable Bakers. At 3 we wheeled Frances across the road to the parish church where she was baptized at 3:15 in the names Frances Anne, by the Rev Donald [?] Aldred.  The baby objected only very briefly and remained wide-eyed throughout. Susan and Chris were the only sponsors. Back to Lawn Road at 3:45 for a buffet, after a photoshoot in the churchyard. Lots of drink. Mum is never at ease with Audrey Baker. They just never seem to 'hit it off'.

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Saturday October 3, 1981

 _. Up at 7:30 to the sound of the postman. The photographs of Catherine and David's wedding have arrived. We sat in bed looking at the pics. I left Ally in bed.

I went out and bought a conifer and a bag of John Innes potting compost. Came back and spent a couple of hours in the garden like Percy Thrower. 

Mum phoned to say they were in Leeds. I said we'd go over and welcome them back at 7.

An interesting story in the press. A local gent by the name of Nicholas Crosse died last week at the age of 50 and it is rumoured that he was the bastard son of the Duke of Windsor. I don't think it plausible. In 1930 at the time of Crosse's birth the then Prince of Wales was entwined in the grasping arms of Thelma, Viscountess Furness. His long standing relationship with Freda Dudley Ward was drawing to a close, and Mrs Simpson was looming on the horizon. Edward liked his women, but did he go around inpregnating the petty bourgeois wives of minor Bradford wool merchants? It has always been rumoured that the Duke of Windsor was sterile. Certainly, from the time of the birth of Princess Elizabeth in 1926 Queen Mary was very aware the child would one day reign. 

Went to Guiseley at 6:30 with booze and cushions. Mum and Dad came in at 7. Not as tanned as I thought they would be. We stayed the night. Watched the film 'Julia' with Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave.

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Friday October 2, 1981

 _. I went at lunchtime to Leeds Market and bought bananas and leeks, and meat for the week. I am very much like my grandfather Wilson in this respect. He liked nothing better than to be let loose in an old fashioned market with a shopping bag. I can picture him now, coming down Market Place, at Goldthorpe, bearing a bag with fresh foul, feet poking out, and heaps of veg, for Mum. One of my earliest memories is of Grandad plucking a turkey on the kitchen table at Christmas, 1959.

Home at 6 to find Ally a vision in pink. She phoned Bessie. We dined on pork chops, &c. Sat afterwards reading the Times and listening to Beethoven. All that was missing was a pipe of ready rubbed. 

Dave G phoned. He's coming here on Friday Oct 16 for the weekend. In bed at 11 attempting to watch an Alain Delon film but fell asleep.

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Thursday October 1, 1981

 _. I came home at 1pm and found Ally snoozing beneath a large volume of the works of Daphne Du Maurier. It poured with rain, heavily, all day. We sat eating beans on toast discussing money. We aren't doing too badly really.

Sat sticking honeymoon photos into an album, looking out at the grey, watery streets. Were we on a scorched Greek island only two months ago?

At 4:30 I went over to the Co-op and filled a plastic bag with vital necessities. Spent £7.50 on green toilet rolls and pots of yoghurt. Bought Ally some bright yellow flowers.

Dined on fried eggs and chips. In bed at 7:20 watching 'Top of the Pops'. I must be growing old. I fail to understand the appeal of some of the so called new music.

News: Mr Trudeau is asking the Queen for independence for Canada. Lord Ampthill, who famously was the baby in the 1920s Russell legitimacy case, has been appointed a director of the YP. Malcolm Barker brought the peer into the office today. Yer real life lords are two a penny at the Yorkshire Post.

-=-

Wednesday September 30, 1981

 _. JPH is five today and at school. Postcard from Mum and Dad in Alassio - a picture of the Pope's palace at Avignon. Dad is swimming, she says, as she watches, and both are lapping up the wine. They return on Saturday.

Phoned Ally at 11. Home at 6. Had a huge dinner. Went over to the corner shop for a packet of biscuits. In Bradford you cannot buy lemon puffs for love nor money.

We were in bed from 7:30. News: Labour party conference bunkum. Lord Boyle of Handsworth is dead, and so is Bill Shankly. The BBC treat his demise as though he's s world leader cut down in the prime of life. This 68-year-old alcoholic Scot was the manager of a prominent football club, apparently. 

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Tuesday September 29, 1981

 _. I made fried liver and onions and we ate on trays in bed at 7:30pm. Afterwards, still in bed, I had a large drink with bobbing ice cubes, watching Burt Lancaster in 'The Birdman of Alcatraz'. Ally, sticking with Daphne Du Maurier, is now reading 'My Cousin Rachel'.

-=-

Monday September 28, 1981

 _. Up at 6:30 and in the bath. Ally stayed in bed until 10. 

News: Healey won the Labour leadership squabble, but only temporarily. The Princess of Wales has appointed three ladies in waiting. Her third cousin once removed Lavinia Baring, Hazel Alston-Roberts-West, and Anne Beckwith-Smith. No shady former flatmates included here, all traditional household appointments.

Ally went to see Dr Glover at 12:30. ____________.

Home at 6. I made lamb chops for dinner, after a chilled Martini. Ally phoned her parents to be told her mother is ill in bed after drinking too much champagne at Goodwood Races.

-=-

Sunday September 27, 1981

JPH: Fenian.

 _. 15th Sunday after Trinity

The children were playing at garages outside our bedroom door at about 6:30am. Breakfast consisted of eggs, bacon, tinned tomatoes. John and I went to inspect Sandy, the goat. John has always had a rapport with the animal kingdom. I do miss John and wish we could see more of him. JPH, is in Lynn's words, a 'Fenian', an old expression of my grandmother Rhodes.

We left at about 1. A hideous journey. Lynn felt car sick and threw up at Carrutherstown. I sat holding the baby. Home in Bradford for 7:30. Asleep, unconscious for 9:30.

What became of the Labour leadership election? I forgot to listen to the news.

-=-

Saturday September 26, 1981

Port Patrick.

 _. Heavy rain. All at the cottage until after 3 and then we drove to Port Patrick and ate damp hot dogs at a take-away on the harbour there. 

Back at Corner House. Some whisky, but not too much. Bed at 10.

-=-

Friday September 25, 1981

 _. Lord Cornwallis is not dead. He was prematurely reported to have died. A Daily Telegraph error. Heads will be rolling on Fleet Street.

Home at 1 to find Ally, clad in blue. We squabbled. On to Burley at 2, and half an hour later we were in Dave's speedy vehicle heading for Scotland. Ally and I had custody of Frances in the back seat. She's incredible with little fat, brown legs. The replica of a Giles cartoon, all cheeks and flared nostrils.

Towns flashed by. Kirkby Lonsdale, Gretna, Annan, Dumfries, Carrutherstown, Gatehouse of Fleet, &c. It was fine to begin with but the rain set in as we went further north. Arrived at Corner House Cottage, Lochans, at 7. John has done a spectacular job. The birthday boy is also the proud possessor of a Billy Goat called Sandy, and he's living in great comfort. Maria is smoking more, eating less. JPH loves limericks, the majority very rude. He was caught attempting to insert a cocktail stick into baby Frances's ear, apparently to remove the excess ear wax.

Corner House Cottage.

We left Lynn, Dave and Frances and went out with John and Maria to loud and largely empty disco. Some of the girls were in corduroy trousers, shirts and ties, all looking a bit Vita Sackville-West, if you ask me. Lesbians always carry large handbags. Have you noticed? Then, I went for a pee only to find two boys in a somewhat indelicate state of dress, pounding away in one of the cubicles. Blimey, Soddom and Gomorrah.

Home at 12:30. Maria decided to drive without car lights. We sat screaming as the vehicle traversed the dark, country lanes. Sat with Lynn and Dave listening to a Buddy Holly LP.

-=-

Thursday September 24, 1981

 _. Pay day. See in the Daily Telegraph that Lord Cornwallis is dead. He was president of the MCC for many years.

Home at and spent a couple of hours stuffing clothes into bags and stripping the house of vital provisions required for our Scottish jaunt. We went to the supermarket for some last minute things and bumped into Graham Wiles, the EP reporter, rummaging through the packs of frozen lasagne.

Ally ironing [again]. Watched 'Fanny By Gaslight' a new series. We have had a postcard from Graham & Charlotte Smith, in Luxor, Egypt.

-=-

Wednesday September 23, 1981

 _. Felt exhausted all day. I must be growing old.

At the YP, Sat reading the dull morning newspapers. Shocked by a photo of Moss Evans, of the TGWU. He is obviously going the same way as Lord Boyle of Handsworth. From a Harry Secombe shape to Mahatma Gandhi in the space of three months.

Rippon: romance?

Rumours about Angela Rippon and Capt Mark Phillips. Miss Rippon says she has eyes only for her husband to dispell stories of a romance that have surfaced in the Australian press. The little newscaster has been spending a lot of time at Gatcombe Park, supposedly writing a book. This has set tongues wagging.

Sarah has announced that she wants to marry Trevor before Christmas, perhaps on Dec 19. Register offices at the moment are refusing to marry people on a Saturday, but knowing Sarah she'd prefer to marry mid-week, like toffs do.

Home at 6 with a heavy head. Ally feeling not much better. ____________.

Mum and Dad have arrived at the Hotel Adler, in Alessio, where they will remain for a week.

-=-

Tuesday September 22, 1981

Bassey: Goldfinger.

 _. A cheerful day at the YP, and not without incident. Shazzo, looking thinner, bounded into the office with tales of horror and hardship as a captive, for two months, in a seething Turkish city. She suffered serious abuse at the hands of her Turkish husband. Locked in a room with other women, and a record player, the only English voice she heard was that of Shirley Bassey singing 'Goldfinger'. In order to keep sane she sat in the squalid apartment, fingers in ears, singing along with Shirley. Her husband, Mr Kocq, is not coming back to Britain. He was here illegally anyway. Poor Shazzo is seeing a solicitor on Thursday. One can never tell just how much of Shazzo's narrative is genuine, but all the same she wraps it up and presents it very convincingly. She's a latter day Charlotte Bronte, if you ask me.

Home at 6. Spent two hours preparing dinner with Ally. Jill and Tim, the honeymooners, came to dine at 8. Homemade mushroom soup, grilled steak with chips, peas, corn, leek, fried mushrooms, cheesecake, chocolate cake, cream. Lutomer Riesling. They are a marvellous couple, and highly suited, and so 'easy going'.

Bed at 1am. Mum and Dad are at Cavaillon.

-=-

Monday September 21, 1981

 _. I don't like Mondays. It was a hardship saying goodbye to Ally. Is this the way our life is going to be until I'm 65? Working or sleeping?

Gloom at the YP. Sarah had a face like a wet weekend. 'Mrs Slocombe' has returned from her Geneva sojourn with the ex-President Jimmy Carter look-alike. Mrs S looks very pale and I suspect she will have indentations from bed springs deep into her back.

Home at 6. Pork chops. Kitten was a hive of industry tonight. Washing, ironing, bed changing.

Foot: crutches

News: What is all this fuss about the squabble for the deputy leadership of the Labour party? When the victor is announced what will it mean? The title 'deputy leader' is worthless anyway. It's Michael Foot's job that's at stake if you ask me. To see the old boy staggering around Moscow on crutches is pitiful. Saw on the 9 o'clock news that the TGWU is to back Wedgwood Benn and not Healey. Healey was in front but is now 'neck and neck' with Benn. Laughable.

Mum and Dad are at Rully, in the Saône-et-Loire, tonight. Lucky buggers. Bed at 11 after a Michael Caine epic. Ally was collapsed over a Agatha Christie.

-=-

Sunday September 20, 1981

 _. 14th Sunday after Trinity

We said goodbye to Mum and Dad at about 9pm last night. They left for the continent at 7am, staying tonight at Dunkirk. It all shrieks of the Second World War and not a holiday. 

We slept until about 11 and had a long, leisurely luncheon. Roast beef, flat Yorkshire puds, &c.

Hardy as Churchill.

Jim and Margaret dropped in at 3pm with details of an advert they want to place in the EP.

Did nothing but watch TV and listen to the radio. I cannot decide whether I like the latest Churchill drama. It's hard to imagine Winnie and Clem tucked up in bed together. They are too recent. It's perhaps easier to see Queen Anne in bed, or the Duke of Wellington or Lord Kitchener [who according to Lady Diana Cooper, liked to be flogged by boys], but not Winston.

-=-

Saturday September 19, 1981

 _. Sunny and blustery. Was splashing in the bath at 8:30.  We were ready for 11. Ally, quite stunning, in her tulip dress. We had a photo shoot in the garden. The neighbours, behind their nets, envious of our high social life. Our comings and goings have brought a touch of Edwardian splendour to this quiet Lidget Green enclave.

Met Mum, Dad, Sue & Pete at noon in the Farmers Arms, Thornbury, and went on to Pudsey Parish Church at 12:45, overtaking Uncle Tony and the bride in their stately Rolls Royce on the way. Wedding was at 1. The vicar, obviously going for the world record, had them married by 1:15 and out onto the lawn for a lengthy photographic session with a fat fellow in a demob suit. In church Tim shook throughout, slightly more worried about the rupture in the Elmer family and where it might lead, than his performance before the vicar. Auntie Mabel wailed throughout. It was perhaps the hymn 'O Perfect Love' that did it.

The receeption was held at Pudsey Civic Hall. Baby Frances took a lot of the attention. She is perhaps one of the finest babies I have seen. I know the current baby is always the finest, but she is a wonder.

Back to Wilsby at 5. No punch ups. Back to the Civic Hall at 7:30, in pouring rain, for a party until midnight. A vast and merry throng too numerous to mention. Joined by Dave L. We sat with Lynn and Dave but I cannot recall any of the conversation. You know how I forget things after a long day with heavy spirits. Home wet at 12. We were invited back to Wilsby but thought the better of it.

[Photographs to accompany the entry to follow]

-=-

Friday September 18, 1981

 _. Feel ghastly. Staggered into the YP for three miserable hours. Made good my escape at 12 and met Ally at 12 at her sun-ray centre and then we went to buy a handbag and the weekly veg. A brisk walk through the fishmongers in John Street market cleared the cobwebs from my befuddled brain.

Ally it seems, always comes out of these debauched evenings with apparently no ill effect. I put it down to her youth.

We went to Pine Tops at 3 and found Mum and Dad reclining in deckchairs in the sitting room because of the lack of furniture. No, it isn't because the bailiffs have been, or anything like that. The three piece suite is being reupholstered. The settee is rare. It's a five seater. 

We went to Menston to collect my morning suit from Charles the Tailor, then to Morrison's, and finally to Harry Ramsden's for fish and chips. We went back to Pine Tops until 9:30 watching the Leeds Triennial Piano competition. A frightened German youth gave a marvellous job of Rachmaninov's 2nd piano concerto. Always a moving piece. Mum and Dad are like young lovers. 

-=-

Thursday September 17, 1981

 _. Pay day. I received a tax rebate, at long last. £68.70. Went out at lunchtime feeling like a millionaire. Bought a 'Haddon Hall' tea saucer for our set, and Agatha Christie's 'Murder at the Vicarage'. Ally is obsessed by the super-sleuth, Hercule [Poirot], and is ceaseless in her reading.

Dismal at the YP. 'Mrs Slocombe' is still in Gstaad with 'Jimmy Carter'. Sarah went off to a Yorkshire Post Literary lunch where the guest speaker is Topol, of all people. Kathleen, still not smoking, was in a foul mood. She went on and on pulling Bradford to pieces. OK, it aint Naples or Venice, but is it on a lower level than Leeds? 

I am told that Lord Boyle of Handsworth is dying and so I spent some time putting his file in order.  The poor man's been eaten away by cancer, but he has kept going.

King Arms, Tong.

Home at 6 to Ally and lasagne. Then into a steaming bath. My mother wouldn't approve. She insists that it's dangerous to submerge oneself into hot water straight after eating.

To Pudsey at 7:30 to the King's Arms at Tong with Jill, Tim, Karen, Steve, Diane, Paul, Hilda [drinking pints], Tony, Geoff Elmer, Margaret, Eugene, Tracy, &c. A drunken evening. I was drinking pils lager. Back at 11 to the Sanderson pile for a couple of hours. They all had a curry [of which Ally partook], and I found myself smoking.

-=-