Saturday January 29, 1983

 We were up at about 9:30 awakened by all the activity. Bessie is an early riser and is up at 6:30 most mornings. Whilst we were gobbling toast she came in from her hairdresser at Alresford. She sat opposite me and I could see blue dye in her scalp. She looks very 'Thatcherish'. 

We took the Triumph Acclaim and sped off to Alresford for the afternoon. We left the car on a muddy lane and walked on a path by the river full of mallards and one regal, solitary swan.Some children in fluorescent wellies splashed by and we wallowed in the mud to allow an old army colonel with a red face, and walking stick to pass by. Hampshire is wonderfully picturesque. We pressed our noses up against shop windows and took a shine to a Chinese vase, circa 1740, on sale at £400. Ally bought a pair of faded jeans in a sale for £10. Looked at watercolours too. A nice one of a pebble beach with a boat. 

To the Horse and Groom (to avoid the drizzle) and spent three hours sitting in the bar. Back to Chillandham Cross slightly pissed. Frank took us to Margarita's pizzeria in Southampton at 7:30. We queued to get in and Bessie looked downcast, but inside it was noisy and typically Italian. (We have been before, of course). Frank and Bessie had veal, and Ally and I had lasagne and pizza. Back for 10:30, full and quite knackered. Frank is having trouble settling Cecil Ferguson's will. His new wife is hanging on to everything __________. To bed by 12.

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Friday January 28, 1983

 Full Moon

Fun at the YP. I didn't tell anyone that I'm taking a holiday next week until after 3 and they all looked on in horror. Carol and poor Margo will be the only ones working on Monday. I couldn't hide my grin. I think I must have a terrible sadistic streak. 

Went outside at 5:10 and Frank, in his BMW arrived, with Ally (and she sat up in the front with her Dad because travelling in the back makes her queasy). With Radio 4 blasting and sitting in the back I couldn't listen in on any of the conversation taking place. He insisted on channel jumping when I was in the middle of a concerto or interview. Count Nikolai Tolstoy insists on referring to 'Princess Diana'. Heard the BBC news about eight times. The water workers are continuing to reject the latest pay offer. Billy Fury, an ageing pop idol from 1961, has died from a heart attack. He sang something called 'Halfway to Paradise'.

We arrived at Chillandham Cross at 9 o'clock, and Bessie was waiting with a dinner of pork chops which we had on trays on our knees before the log fire. Andrew passed his motor cycle test today, but didn't talk about it. 

We went off to bed quite early because Ally is still sniffing and giving great chesty coughs. Graham was absent.

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Thursday January 27, 1983

 Blustery to say the least. Late up - it was 7:30.  Just toast. Ally looks better but no recovered by any means and she returned to bed when I left at 8.

Busy day. Mrs Slocombe 's 'what is this?'  badger sensation is sweeping the office. Photostats of badgers in various poses are appearing all over the newsroom. 

At lunchtime I bought Ally some tiny earrings with green stones - 99p. It's the thought that counts. Spoke to Ally on the blower. Mum and Dad are setting out to Pudsey to see Auntie Mabel and then Auntie Hilda. Ally says that Dad is like a cat on hot bricks in the house. A caged animal. (Perhaps a badger?). I hope he'll be kept busy up at Horton.

Tonight we ate corn on the cob and left over lasagne and I attacked a blue Stilton cheese. We browsed through Mum's catalogue and picked out over £100 worth of gear. Top of the Pops and the ghastly Russell Harty. Ally phoned Bessie. Cousin Beverley is expecting a second child. She and Tony (Tebby) have a daughter, Zoë. Graham and Gill have bought a golden retriever of which they will take possession next month. 

Mum and Dad return from Guiseley. ________________. Mum and Dad look like fatted pigs, and worry me greatly. We sat laughing at the way Mum and Dad always go up to bed with four or five newspapers, and they read every page. The rustling goes on far into the night.

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Wednesday January 26, 1983

 A Spring-like day. I do not think that winter is going to materialise this year. Up at 6:30. The traffic outside acts as an alarm clock. Poor Ally is streaming and so confined to barracks. Boiled eggs and toast. Kisses goodbye at 8. I could have given it a miss myself. Bookless to the YP. 

News: 73,000,000 people are having to boil water. President Reagan is the most unpopular president since Jimmy Carter. Princess Margaret is in love with a spotty, teenage ballet dancer. Lord Citrine, who led the TUC back in Neolithic times has died at the age of 95.

Fresh air in the park. Phoned Ally who is missing me. She went back to bed with her book. Mum and Dad were up and off at 9:30. I hid behind a filing cabinet until it was decently possible to make good my escape.

Lasagne with Ally. ___________. She went to bed after Coronation Street and I sat alone. (Mum and Dad were dining with Sue and Pete and going to John's afterwards). 

At 8:10 watched a programme about exiled royalty with Anthony Holden, biographer of the Prince of Wales. He interviewed King Umberto of Italy, who looked ghastly, and a 'Scottish sociologist' Princess Margarita of Rumania, who is 50th in line to the British throne and a goddaughter of the Duke of Edinburgh. She somewhat shyly said she calls the Queen 'Aunt Lilibet', and then promptly changed the subject. 

To avoid Michael Foot and a Labour party political broadcast I went up to bed at 9 and found Ally gasping and sweating. I turned off our bedroom radiator and cheered her up and she is dangling her hot legs on me as I write this. _____________. Found an Alastair Maclean book that I didn't know I had.

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Tuesday January 25, 1983

My grandfather was born 82 years ago today. He always believed he was born the day Queen Victoria died. He was wrong. I've probably told you this before.

No Kathleen at the YP today. She is burying her 'senior' aunt. It was a good day for it. I went out at lunchtime for my daily constitutional in Park Square. A chimney on St Paul's House blew off in the gales last month.

Phoned Ally. She posted our application form to Chef & Brewer at Hipperholme. Such fun. I was at work feeling refreshed and full of glee at the thought of escape. Like a light at the end of the tunnel. Left at 4:15 in daylight and stood for half an hour waiting for a bloody 72 bus which defeated the whole object of my leaving early.

Mum had made chicken stew. They looked at our recent photographs (just arrived). Some good ones of Frances in her red woolly dress.

Ally's cold has worsened and at 8:30 I packed her off to bed with orange juice and paracetamol tablets. I finish S. Birmingham's biography of the Duchess of Windsor. Watched 'The Creature from the Black Lagoon' and Russell Harty at a Burn's Night party which was flat as a fart. Dad and I sat pulling it to pieces. Watched the news. We are in the middle of a national water strike, you know. A first. What did Marie Antoinette say? 'Let them drink Coke'. Bed at 11. Ally hot and asleep.

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Monday January 24, 1983

 Was up at 7 filling in an application form. Why will I be a success in a pub? How can I answer that one? Toast and tea.

I have decided that Malcolm Barker is like Caligula, only more unpredictable. Read the Sunday papers and of Marcia Falkender's account of (Harold) Wilson's resignation in '76. I am suspicious of why he went so suddenly. We haven't heard the last of it. Also read the serialised journals of the Shah of Iran's last ambassador to the UK 1976-77 (in the Sunday papers). Love diaries.

YP: Mrs Slocombe was filing photos of wildlife and held up a photo exclaiming: 'what beast is this unidentified, small and furry animal?' It was a badger. A badger. She hadn't a clue. 

Tonight: Ally's nose glowed like a beacon. She's starting with a cold. Hilda phoned Mama. Karen is pregnant and due in August. Bessie phoned. Penny Browne had a son yesterday. We had fish and chips, and then later on had cheese on toast.  Watched TV until after 12. Mum and Dad sat looking a plumbing brochures for sinks for their Waltergarth bedrooms and for a microwave oven - posh. To bed at 12:30. Poor Ally isn't 100 per cent.

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Sunday January 23, 1983

 3rd Sunday after Epiphany

Communal breakfast. Papa went out and bought a News of the World which was full of lies and nonsense about the Princess of Wales. Sickening.

John phoned and came over with Janette at 3 and we all had drinks while the chicken cooked in its booze-filled pot (yes, I put far too much plonk in with the bird). We ate at 6.

________. Janette was drinking Pernod, and the lethal spirit  'opened her up' so to speak. Dad and I sat watching Shakespeare's 'Richard III' and Janette related her life story to Mum and Ally. I cannot decide which was the most dramatic - the War of the Roses or the War of the Rhodeses (of Lochans, Stranraer). John left at 7:30 for four hours to play Squash with Chris and Pete M. It's disturbing to learn that Chris now listens to tapes of Richard Clayderman, a somewhat unwholesome French pianist, with Roddy Llewellyn looks. Dubious to say the least.

_______. Mum sat quietly nodding throughout. John came back at 11:30 in the ice and took Janette home. ____________.

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