Friday January 21, 1983

 The morning cock did thrice make salutation to the morn. We crept around like venomous things to avoid arousing Mama and Papa from their slumbers. A letter (nay, application form) comes from Chef & Brewer (Webster's really) and we laugh at the great wad of questions. We are applying to manage a pub and not for the director generalship of the CIA. They want recent photographs of us.

YP was tolerable because I have a feeling I am not long for that place.

Mum and Dad went off to Lynn's. She's having new carpets fitted in the attic. It all sounds very affluent. David Baker is Guiseley's answer to King Louis XIV.

Ally and I had fish finger sandwiches and watched a programme on the BBC about the Castle of Mey. Who will get this pile after HM (the Queen Mother) passes into the bossom of the Lord? Perhaps one of Margaret's lot, or Princess Anne. Caithness is a suitably remote spot for Mark Phillips's incarceration. 

We contemplated going to bed but were distracted. The Shirley Conran novel has given Ally ideas I'm sure. 

Mum and Dad returned after 10. The Bakers carpets are oatmeal. 

We are told that we will have no water next week. We'll all look like urchins. And speaking of urchins Michael Fagan has been released from his asylum imprisonment after only six weeks. Our poor Sovereign Lady.

-=-

Thursday January 20, 1983

 Mama and Papa are in residence at ours and prepared a meal for us whilst we were at our daily labours. So obsessed I am with Patrick Anderson's novel that coming home I missed my stop and got half way to Clayton. I am within seven pages of the end. Could it be curtains for President Charles Whitmore?

Ate pork. Not my favourite roast. Wallowed in the bath and missed some of Top of the Pops. They're all so young these days.

Ally is quite fantastic about Mum & Dad. She usually detests having her 'privacy invaded, but not a murmur of disapproval.

-=-

Wednesday January 19, 1983

 Freezing, but sunny and crisp. We took cups of tea up to Mum and Dad, who have an appointment at the bank at 10:30. To the YP with my Patrick Anderson book. 

Geoff Hemingway gave me £4 for the Bruce Dundas tip. Home at 6 expecting fish fingers, but Mum and Dad say they're taking us to Pizzeria Mamma Mia for dinner - a wonderful surprise. Ally put on her little white and gold number and after a few pre-prandials we went off in the snow to Manningham Lane. We told them about writing to the breweries and they were favourable. Dad asked whether I'd have done anything different if I could wind back the clock ten years. I told him I wouldn't. 

The thought of teaching now makes me shudder, and the thought of general reporting has never been my scene even though I can spot a good news story at three hundred yards. 

Ally and I had seafood pizzas, and Mum and Dad had cannelloni and lasagne, and Papa took the bill. £18 for four with wine and a starter is excellent, I think. Back home in the nifty little Renault for post-prandial drinks of pernod and orange. Watched the beginning of a series about the Cleopatras. It's a bit like Coronation Street, or Crossroads, but with pyramids. Bed at 11:30. Mum and Dad much more jolly today. They had spent the day up at Ingleton and on to Horton and say that the hills look exquisite in snow. I wish them success and happiness.

-=-

Tuesday January 18, 1983

 We got up and Ally, looking out, said it was snowing 'badly'. I sluggishly climbed out of bed and formed my own opinion. She was half right. Boiled eggs with Ally's home made bread is like something sent from the Gods. Her bread cannot be beaten. 

To the YP reading my American thriller. I'm obsessed with it. After going out at lunchtime to post letters to the breweries I returned to the office looking like a snowman and sat reading my novel behind the filing cabinets. It shrieks of Watergate, but is so good. Ally phoned whilst I was hiding behind the cabinets and Margo came to find me. At 4 Mum phoned to ask to come over and stay the night, but said they's have the bunks. This is stupid. Why should they have the bunks when Ally and I can fit in the bottom one quite easily? I wouldn't give up myh bed for anyone, but Mum and Dad are the exception. Ally, slightly panic stricken at the news, rushed home to vacuum everywhere. They arrived like lost souls at 7:30. We had a few drinks and Ally toddled off to bed at 11. Mum revealed why they have landed with us in Bradford at such short notice. ___________. I consoled her and told her that they could stay with us until they go up to Horton-in-Ribblesdale (Jan 31). Ally is an angel about it all and tries to make them feel wanted. ________.

-=-

Monday January 17, 1983

 Strong wind. Took lashings of coffee (black), and ten seconds of 'breakfast TV' from the BBC which started today. Frank Bough at 6:30am is a ghastly thought, and so I'm sticking with the dear, old wireless. We do not have the time to watch TV at breakfast time. My God, don't we have enough of the box without getting it at dawn? 

Took a book with me on the bus. After nine years of looking out upon a grimy West Yorkshire I think I need a change. It's 'The President's Mistress' by Patrick Anderson. To and from Leeds I managed 80 pages, and seven chapters.

YP was hell. Ally phoned. We talked of sending for an application form for Viking Taverns at Hipperholme. Home at 6 and after a chicken salad I took to my typewriter and composed three letters to Timothy Taylor's, Websters and Viking Taverns. The dye is cast. It is exciting. OK, it will be hard and we'll be tied down but we'll be making money and working together. It will be a challenge.

Phoned John. I asked if he was coming over tonight. His reply was that he has no petrol in the car, and will come at the weekend because Janette will still be here. She wants a job, and I suggested that she might look in the YP or EP for vacancies. She is heading to the job centre tomorrow.

Ally baked bread and pottered in the kitchen whilst I watched an Al Pacino film about a bank robbery. I couldn't decide whether it was a comedy or not.

Now that I've written three silly letters I feel as though I have made some progress down the pathway to security and stability. Ally will hate leaving Ash Tree Cottage.

-=- 

Sunday January 16, 1983

2nd Sunday after Epiphany

A morning in bed. It's a rare thing these days. I cannot recall when I last climed out from 'neath the sheets after noon. Even on New Year's Day we were up reasonably. We eventually emerged and splashed in the bath and had breakfast, dressed scantily, to the sound of the washing machine going berserk. Had a Duran Duran session at full volume.

Got a bus to Guiseley and arrived at about 3. Blustery day to say the least. To Thorpefields and the Bakers. Sat nursing Katie who is like 'ET' and not at all attractive. Poor Frances, looking sturdy and very grown up, did a dive from the settee and cut her face. We all sat and watched. She seemed to be in the air in slow motion, and none of us could prevent the accident. Had a few beers and inspected Dave's double glazing. They have inherited the decor from the last occupiers. We watched Frances have her tea and then went to Sue & Pete's at 5:30. They'd just eaten. We told them about our census search. Christopher is in control.

Phoned John. He was playing squash with Chris but we went round all the same and passed him in the door. We sat with Janette for half an hour drinking coffee. _____________.

We left at 8:45. Home to chicken stew and Yorkshire puddings. Bed 11:30.

-=-

Saturday January 15, 1983

 Our alarm let rip at 7 and we lay in the darkened bedroom wondering whether we might be raving mad. We had a hurried boiled egg and went out at 8:15 for the bus to Leeds. We got to the city reference library for 9:15 and immediately tackled the 1881 census. I looked at Pudsey and Ally concentrated on Bramley in an attempt to find the elusive John Rhodes. My great-great grandmother Mrs Betty Wilson was still alive aged 66 in 1881. She was living in Chapeltown, Pudsey, with three of her unmarried children, and a granddaughter, Harriet E. Robinson, aged 17. My great-grandfather John Wilson was a 28 year-old labourer, living in Rider's Row, Chapeltown, with his wife Rella, 25, and two children, William 5, and Harriet, 10 months. Where was Mary, born in 1878? She must have been staying elswehere on the night of April 8, 1881. I found a couple of Fawberts but no direct ancestors. On the Bramley register Ally found John Henry Rhodes, 14, son of Samuel Rhodes, 46, a farmer, of Atkinson's Buildings, Bramley, and Eliza Ann his wife, 41, born in Horsforth. Could John Henry be my great-grandfather? It's the middle name Henry that has thrown us off the scent. She came across numerous Appleyards, all well-to-do brothers of my great-great-grandmother Mary Ann Appleyard (Mrs Ross). We finished for about 1:30 and made our way to the pub next door, Stumps, which is run by the Hartleys who employed Ally three years ago at what was the Belfry. We had one drink. Hideous. We went to Austick's and to Greenhead's to look at the books. Bought a YP. Lady Galway's obit is in. Not that they'll pay me. Dear me, no. Bought a Minton Haddon Hall tea plate bringing our collection to six. Home for 3:30.

I trussed the chicken and prepared dinner whilst Ally giggled at an Alastair Sim film on the BBC. Later she fell asleep on a large cushion. Alastair Sim again in 'The Belles of St Trinians'. Very amsuing.

We ate at 6:30. Ally's nap had done her no good, and she was too tired to eat. Sat reading afterwards. The Duke of Windsor was, if Stephen Birmingham is to be believed, an absolute horror. Ally on with Shirley Conran's 'Lace'.

-=-