20120806

Monday July 4, 1977

Lynn wakes me at 7.30 thinking I'm in the office today but the weather was so nice I decided to stay up and take it all in. With the breakfast things cleared away Susan and I leaped out into the sun where we basked until lunchtime. At lunch Mum says John has been acting strangely and has demanded that the money I owe re Maria's catalogue be delivered to him this afternoon. He said something to the effect that "Michael never pays up on time". __________________________.

Self: scalped ...
Went to Leeds where I was scalped. The shortest haircut I have had in years. 82F reads the YP thermometer too. Bloody hideous heat. From Leeds I went to Bradford for 5 o'clock and met Martyn and WH Smith's. We went to see Denise and I told her about Carole. She enquires: "Do you like her again now?" Like her? I positively loathe her at this moment and wouldn't speak to her again but for the fact she has one of my better shirts in her collection. Denise didn't seem overjoyed to see us.

Martyn and I adjourned to 'The Queen' for a few much needed lagers and then got the bus home. My visit to Bradford wasn't all that necessary but I enjoyed it all the same. I'm going to phone Miss Phillips tomorrow and give her a large piece of my mind. At this moment in time I could make Jack the Ripper look like Joyce Grenfell.

-=-

Sunday July 3, 1977

4th after Trinity. Sat in the garden from 11.30 until nearly 3. Wonderful day. Mr Ratcliffe and Mr Mather called in with the flight tickets and holiday itinery.

Chris & Pete.
I entertained them in the lounge while attempting to devour a salad and speak to Tony on the blower at the same time. Chris and Peter still push the idea that we should go to Denise's party and then go to Manchester with them but I'm adamant. Besides, the flight has been altered to 9.35am - so they'll have to set off at about 5am to get the airport in time.

At the YP tonight I phoned Dave G to tell him Mr Mather would be contacting him to secure garage space for his van. We had a really good chat. How great is this holiday going to be? Work was dead. Wendy is nice though.

-=-


Saturday July 2, 1977

A day in the garden doing bugger all. John called in this afternoon to enquire about my destination this evening. I told him I was supposed to be going out with Carole but not having heard from her I told him this now seemed unlikely. He says, with puzzled expression, that Carole has been playing hell all week because I hadn't phoned and that she would now be going out with John, Maria and Chris R tonight instead. Naturally! I began to feel rather angry with the darling who is the object of my affections.

with Martyn.
John wanted Mum and Dad to babysit for JPH but they're out tonight with Sue, Pete and the Nason's to Flashman's. Lynn and Dave offered to 'sit' instead and David drove down to Silverdale Dr and came back ten minutes later saying Carole was going to babysit instead and that she was playing hell about me. This is the bloody ultimate!

I am not really sure what game Carole is playing but whatever it is I'm not participating.No bloody way.

Tony went to assist John & Jill Cameron move to Beverley and Martyn and I walked down to the Hare. We then went and stood in the car park at the Fox and Hounds where an incident of horrific proportions took place. George and Jane pulled in followed by John and Maria and on seeing us they all drove straight out of the car park and back up the road. Is this Carole Phillips's polluted mind for you? Is she now poisoning John & Maria?

On the bus taking us back to White Cross we encountered a band of drunken youths who indecently exposed themselves to the queue of people at Harry Ramsden's. Amazing. Back home through Tranmere. I uprooted a 'No Tresspassing' sign and I told Martyn just where I intend to insert it. Or perhaps I should say in whom I intend inserting it.

We watched a Dracula film and then a Frankenstein film. Retired to bed at 3am. Martyn slept on a camp bed in my room.

-=-

20120805

Friday July 1, 1977

Dominion Day, Canada. Nice hot day for a change. Revolting day at the office with no time at all to speak to anyone. Coming home on the bus I realised I hadn't phoned Carole. Sod it.  No doubt she'll contact me before our date tomorrow.

Meanwhile that night: To a few pubs in Baildon with Tony and Martyn. Then to the Bod. Tony says I'm subdued, but I don't feel miserable at all.

Muggy, overpowering heat in the taverns and clothing was discarded by many. It was refreshing to see a bit of thigh for a change. Nothing quite like a half clothed female. In the Bod Maxine and Sue were to be found. The latter, in Tony's words, is a 'cock teaser'. She fondled Martyn's genitals as though she was handling 2lb of King Edward's. They propositioned them to go to Il Trovatore but after Maxine asked mummy's permission and was refused the glint faded from Martyn's eye. His evil plan had been thwarted.

They dropped me off at Pine Tops and then went on the pilage.

No message from Carole. Tony offered to call in and see her tomorrow morning but I told him not to. We need no go-between and if she can't be bothered to enquire as to my reasons for not phoning her, especially after her deceit, cheating and lies she can just piss-off.

-==-

Thursday June 30, 1977

The last day of bleedin' June. What a stinker of a month we've had, eh? The most cloudy June since 1306 BC and the wettest since 1204 when Richard the Lionheart's armour went rusty. Honest.
Richard the Lionheart: rusty armour?

No evening on the town tonight. Was so busy at work today I had no time to phone Carole.

The fact that it is pay day makes no difference at all to my sorry financial plight. I discovered that I owed it all to Lynn, Mama or Mr Barclay.

Just watched television all evening. Felt shagged out. At one point I passed out on the settee serenaded by the revolting Max Bygraves.

Mum and Dad went out for a drink. I was in bed by 10.30pm.

-=-

Wednesday June 29, 1977


Work was ghastly and I made my exit at 3.30pm.  Tony rang later and said he was cheesed off with Barry and I told him to venture to Pine Tops. He arrived looking pale with a revolting tooth ache and within minutes we are on the open road heading in the direction of a tavern.
Tony.

Alcohol is supposedly good for tooth ache. It's also a marvellous cure for back ache, heart ache, and cancer. If nothing else it helps you to die laughing.

The first port of call was the Queen's on Apperley Lane. I am reminded of the late Judith Beevers (see May-Jul 1974) but otherwise it's dead, flat and miserable. The brandy here didn't do much for Tony's throbbing tooth and so we went to the dreaded Drop in Guiseley, where the brandy was equally ineffective.

Tony agrees to take Martyn and I to Stockport on July 9 and says he'll probably bring Linda along too. Will she fit in at the Hollywood? __________. Last call was the Fox & Hounds, Menston.

Home to find Mama and Papa entertaining Edith & Ernest, who have brought a supply of wine with them. I did a spot of tasting myself. A good time was had by all. Night Night.

-=-

Tuesday June 28, 1977

Decent weather for a change. Going down the lane on my journey to the metropolis I was stunned by the sight of vast quantities of nettles in the hedgerows. I decided to set about making nettle wine. "Oh Goody!" I thought to myself: "I can hardly wait to get started!" Subsequently, after tea on this bright, sunny evening I marched out armed with protective rubber gloves and a red plastic bucket on my quest for the most succulent nettles. After half an hour I was more than laden and my wine-making began. In fact I was boiling nettles until long after sun-set and by midnight my part of the creation was complete and the rest was in the capable hands of Mother Nature.
Ruth Ellis.
I did manage to see a bit of television. A documentary on Rubens, the 16th century painter and decorator, and a documentary on Ruth Ellis, the last young lady to die by the rope in these weak-kneed Isles. If I had my way a good many more women would receive the distinction of swinging by the neck from the gallows. Those pretty IRA lady bombers would go for a start. No doubt about it, they knew how to treat criminals in the 1950s.

Retired to bed at about midnight with Burke's Peerage. Did you know that the Duchess of Kent is descended from Oliver Cromwell? (If not then you haven't studied these diaries carefully enough because I've told you before). Felt exhausted and fell to sleep with the bedroom light blazing, only to be discovered by Mama at 3.30am. What was she doing prowling around the house at that God forsaken time?

-=-

Tuesday January 7, 1986

  Moorhouse Inn , Leeds , LS11 5NQ A 7am start again. What long days we have. Samuel is still raving about ' Agadoo ', dancing with ...