Tuesday April 30, 1974

Rose at 7.30. Very warm and sunny. Surely, today must be the best day we have experienced this year. Very busy and at about 3 Kathleen was furious about missing pictures of Billy Bremner which for some reason are in London! Janice was a bitch all day and I was relieved to get away from her at 5. Anne and I walked down Wellington Street in the warm sunshine which was a fantastic feeling after being cooped up in the YP all day long.

See the state visit on the 6 o'clock news. Queen Margrethe positively dwarfed the Queen, who was 7 or 8 inches smaller. The Queen was in powder blue and the Danish sovereign in canary yellow. Feeling furious that no consensed showing of the visit is on tv tonight. Evidently the BBC think that the sporting activities of Jack Charlton, and the prospects of having Francois Mitterrand as President of France, is more important than the visit to this country of a foreign head of state.

Do the lawns with Dad and find the lawnmower sadly dilapidated since I last saw it. Tv in the evening is, as I've already said, dead, and I turn, in my boredom, to 'Have his Carcase' by Dorothy L. Sayers.

I am working on Friday night and am taking Thursday afternoon off and when I told Helen this she look like she'd been told she had six months left to live. Sadly, my Fridays will be spent at the YP for several weeks now. Bed at 12.

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Monday April 29, 1974

Warm and clammy all day. Quite busy at the YP. Kathleen gives me a claim form for my taxi expenses for last Thursday and I go to the cashiers where I emerge several minutes later with two crisp, new pound notes and four silver ten pence pieces. This sudden glut of wealth brightens and cheers the remainder of the day no end. We laugh at Sarah, who is somewhere in the midst of revolution-torn Portugal, and think it an amusing coincidence that she was also in Greece last summer when when the coup d'etat took place and the monarchy was 'axed'. Obviously, Sarah must have a diverse influence on the sanity and reason of foreign nations. Let us hope that she will go to Russia next year, for who knows, the Tsar may well be back in the Winter Palace, thanks to Sarah!

See part two of Dorothy L. Sayers book 'The Nine Tailors' - which is quite enthralling. Ian Carmichael plays a brilliant Lord Peter Wimsey. The books could have been written especially for him.

Make toast for supper and laugh at poor Peter who had to sit through 'The Way We Were' starring Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford at Yeadon Cinema. Love stories aren't quite young Nason's cup of tea.

Cousin Jill had a birthday today - the exact numerical situation fails me, but I think she must be nearly 12 or 13 if my shoddy calculations prove correct.

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Sunday April 28, 1974

2nd after Easter. Up at 11. Rains all day and it's quite a typical Sunday. Have remarkable lunch - my favourite - beef and then read all afternoon.

Lynn, the poor creature, is bogged down with her CSEs and I fail to deter her from doing too much revising.

At 7.25 see a programme on the BBC about Queen Margrethe of Denmark, who pays an official visit to Windsor from April 30 to May 2. A very attractive woman - six feet in height, and the youngest reigning Queen Regnant in Europe. Not that she's got any competition however. Queen Juliana (of Holland) is about 65 and of course our own dear Elizabeth who is 48. The Queen of Denmark can actually walk through the streets of Copenhagen without so much as a stare or inquisitive glance - impossible for our monarch in the UK. Bed at 12.


'Waterloo' by Abba.

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Saturday April 27, 1974

Rise, if that is what you can call crawling out of bed with a hangover, at 7.45. Lynn and Sue say I look 'shocking' and I certainly feel it. Work was terrible and I was glad to get out at 11.55. Walk to the station with Anne who tells me she is leaving in June. I tell her that the YP will not be the same without her, but she laughs and thinks I am making fun of her. The poor devil is going to Cheshire to do social work or something of that type of charitable nature.

Have lunch and listen with Sue and John to 'Radio 5' which isn't so funny as it was last week.

Capt Mark Phillips is the victor of this years Badminton Horse Trials and I watched the final stages of the tournament on tv this afternoon. Capt Phillips rode the Queen's horse, and Her Majesty gave the cup to her son-in-law. Princess Anne was fourth I think. The Queen looked remarkably fashionable again and over the past 2 years everyone has noticed that HM is becoming more and more well dressed.

John goes to the H & H and Mum and Dad go to Burley. The girls go out and leave me alone with the tv. See 2 good films and read 'Have his Carcase' by Dorothy L. Sayers, which is another edition of the Lord Peter Wimsey saga - very good. Bed after 1am.

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Friday April 26, 1974

Rise at 8.30. Determined not to go into the YP until 10.30 at least. Leave on 9.30 bus - the one which goes the long way round and eventually get to the office at 20 to 11. Kathleen sorts out my trouble with Austin-Clarke, or I hope so anyway, and I work steadily until lunch.

See Marita, looking thinner, in Leeds. She's committed some atrocities on her hair and looks semi-negro or something! But still, Marita is a great character. I had to laugh when she said she'd caught something off MM. One always thinks of VD when people say things like that, but she soon lets me know it is shingles or the symptoms of shingles anyway. We said we were both bored with our evenings entertainment of late, but parted without attempting to remedy this 'We Hate the Emmotts but we Can't Help Going' attitude. Eat sandwiches in the park. Go to the dentist at 4.30 - just a check up of course, and arrive home at 5.45.

Believe it or not, I am staying at home this evening, and I think Chris and John may follow suit, but they aren't made of the same stuff as me - givers in, that's what they are. Later: I've joined the 'givers in' and been to the Hare and Hounds where all the gang assemble. Chris and I have a great laugh with Christine W. Go on to Wikis where I get drunk and spend all the time with Valerie.

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Thursday April 25, 1974

Relax all day. Get books from Guiseley Library: 'Clouds of Witness' by Dorothy L. Sayers, which is very good; and the memoirs of Rafaella, Duchess of Leinster, which I haven't had time to inspect yet. Cold, but sunny day.

Go to the YP at 5. Kathleen is busy all evening and we see little or nothing of each other. Feel very irate when I see they haven't given me extra pay for working Thursday night, and Kathleen says something to the effect 'you could bang your head against a wall', etc, which I doubt would do very much good at all.

File pictues of the Queen of Denmark, who is to pay a state visit to the UK next week. She certainly looks a lovely lady, and I intend watching the BBC programme about her on Sunday.

Get a taxi at 12 but feel astounded when he says my journey is not on account! It costs me £2.40, which is obscene when one takes my pay into consideration. Austin-Clarke may as well be a stuffed effigy for all the work he does, and they (the YP that is) are not going to get away with this. Bed at 2 after sitting tucked up with Dorothy L. Sayers, Lord Peter Wimsey and a cup of cocoa.

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Wednesday April 24, 1974

Up at 7.30. Morning passes quickly and I get a bus home at 12. Carol had some bad news this morning. I think her grandmother died, or something. Janice and I were sitting with her when she received a phone call. She was upset.

Nice lunch. Just Mum, Dad and self. Quite infuriated that Barclaycard hasn't let me know anything. I wanted a spending spree at the weekend and unless I get a card this will not be possible.

See 'Coronation Street' on tv. Anne Walker was playing Lady Bracknell in 'The Importance of Being Earnest'.

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