Tuesday July 16, 1974

Carry On Painting.


(Page filled with ink sketch of my sister Susan. "A bad picture of Sue, who looks somewhat nicer in the flesh - Not at all fat)".

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Monday July 15, 1974

Buy paint for the hall doors. Rainy awful day and typical of summer these days. Denny comes straight from work for tea - sausages and chips, etc. Quite nice. She is annoyed about Judy coming tonight and fails to see the sense in my going out with her. She is of course quite right because neither do I see any sense in going out with Judy, but it makes a friendly diversion from the usual rigmarole. Christine and Linda come at 8.30 with Chris - and Judy follows on at 9. The atmosphere is awful. Judy looks like Hell. Sharon, my distant Kirk cousin comes after 9, with her friend Susan - quite a laughable couple. Go to the Commercial for a few drinks at 10. Back home for coffee - unenjoyable evening really. Dead loss.

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Sunday July 14, 1974

5th after Trinity. The sun rises and I go for a walk on the moor. A beautiful morning really - and by 5am I am on Baildon Moor. Back to Pine Tops where I sit in a deckchair in the garden with 'Queen Mary' till nearly 8. Sleep in bed from just after 8am till 11.30. Denny makes breakfast for everyone, and I am surprised that they are alive, meaning Denny and Ron - who spent the night in Mum and Dad's bed and accidentally triggered the electric blanket. They could have ended up more fried than the bacon.

Marita comes at 1pm and we go to the Commercial at Esholt - Dave, Chris, John and Marita. At 3 everyone except D goes to Marita's where we sit in her bedroom and sup Cinzano and home-made marrow wine till after 5. To the Emmotts at 8. See June and feel nothing for her at all. I'm free from her spell at last! Can you really believe it?

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Saturday July 13, 1974

YP till noon. Go to 'Just Pants Plus' and get a pair of wonderful trousers - cords - with an embroidered pattern on the bum - £7.00, etc. Home and in the bath at 2 listening to Tony Blackburn.

Dearest Denny comes straight from work for tea - prawn curry - though we don't enjoy it at all after arguing about Judith. Denny says she wouldn't have come to tonight's party if she had been aware that J was joing to attend. To Hare and Hounds at 8.15. Joined by Marita, who looks gorgeous lately, and MM and Christine Jennings____.In order to cheer up Marita I pull her to my side of the bar where we buy each other Cinzanos till after 10.30. Both quite drunk. Marita having to drive as well!! Party a good success. Denny, who is very drunk, finds her old boyfriend, Ron, and they spend the night together. Judith comes at 11.30 and I ignore her - being very drunk -and she leaves 10 minutes later. Fantastic scenes in the bathroom then follow, and I am in the shower with a massive audience of both sexes. Everyone gets thoroughly soaked, and poor Christine W looks like Phyllis Diller with her hair wet. Linda, Carol, Dave B and Keith and myself have an amusing, unrecordable, session in our small, yet cosy, lavatory. Hysterical. Everything ends at 3am when someone put a foot through the bathroom door. I don't want the party to end but most folk drift off. When everyone is in bed asleep I clear up the mess and listen to the 'Super Bad' LP.

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Friday July 12, 1974

Quite a nice day. YP as usual. To the Hare and Hounds at about 8 with Chris (who comes at about 9.30!), Christine W, John, Andy, Dave Baker and Carol & Linda S, etc. Ring Judith at a quarter to nine and I say I'll meet her outside the Hare at 9.30.

I enjoy going out with Judith Beevers because Keith is so infatuated with her. Move on to the Black Horse at Askwith, though J and I get lost on the way - arriving 10 minutes after everybody else. We have them on saying we ran out of petrol in a lay-by in some desolate spot. Nice time until 10.30. Back to Pine Tops for coffee.

(PS Saw Mum, Dad, Lynn, Sue, Alison and Christine all set off for Spain this afternoon - hate parting with Mum. Even at 19 I feel too attached to leave her for any length of time.)

J and I sit listening to records, whilst the others, John included, watch a rotten old film on the tv. No lively spirits at all in our crowd. Everyone goes at 12 - J included. Party tomorrow - Yippee!

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Thursday July 11, 1974

Denny and I are going to Ibiza on September 14. Obviously, we aren't sharing a room or anything so permissive, though Auntie Hilda says it would be a lot more inexpensive if we did, and goes on the say: "anyway, you don't often find single rooms in Continental hotels, and even if you do they cost the earth." Anyway, Denny refuses to share a room with me._____. Denny, the darling, says it will only cost £16, excluding spending money. Can't be bad, can it?

Quite busy at the YP. Rains all day, and Judith and I are soaked waiting for the train. At 6 Judith R accompanies me to Guiseley Library where I get 'Queen Mary' by James Pope-Hennessy, which I first read at the age of 13. However, the recent murder of Mr Pope-Hennessy urged me to re-read it. Quite a good book, but I detected several mistakes. For instance, he says that Prince Henry (1900-74) was created Duke of Gloucester in 1935 on his marriage to Lady Alice Montagu-Douglas-Scott. This is untrue. Prince Henry was created a duke on his 28th birthday in March, 1928. Pope-Hennessy was done away with by his Irish-born homosexual partner in January, and by all accounts he was a friend of the Queen, who was grief stricken by her grannie's biographers death.

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Wednesday July 10, 1974

Very wet and cold day. YP until 12, and manage to get a bus straight to the Emmotts, where I get a pint of Guinness and wait for Denny. She rings at 1 and says her bus didn't arrive, and that she'll have to wait for the next one at 2. I sit in the bar drinking on my own and get through a lot more ale than I intended. Dear Denny rings at 2 and says the same story about no bus coming to her bus stop. I then say I'll go the farm with a bottle of something, and we can then celebrate her 18th birthday from then onwards. Buy a bottle of Martini Rosso at Rawdon Co-op and proceed to stagger onto a Harrogate bus, worse for alcohol, and with the unwrapped bottle of Martini in my clutches. Arrive at Denny's at about 3pm. In 2 hours we drink all the Martini, the 2 of us, and then make a start on her 'duty free' brandy. At 5 o'clock we fall on the floor, unable to retain our balance or sense of perspective. I am almost hysterical when she says______. I accidentally smashed the telephone, and we attempted to sober ourselves by drinking gallons of coffee and eating piles of cheese on toast. Go to the Hare at about 9 - still terribly drunk and wet through with rain. Drink Pernod and lager. MM and Marita come. Mr Akroyd brings John and me home at 10.45. The Gadsbys are here.

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