Sunday May 13, 1984

 3rd Sunday after Easter

Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Uncle Peter.

Ally opened up with Margaret and I stayed with Samuel. Upstairs inspecting the geraniums I looked out and saw a Rover car approaching carrying Auntie Mabel, but who was she with? It's Uncle Peter and cousin Beverley. He is so very likeable. The double of Grandad Wilson. Beverley is 16 and training to be a nurse 'like our Jackie'. Mabel and Beverley sat outside with Samuel and I stood in the darkened lounge with uncle Peter having a run down on various aspects of the family history since 1980. Stephen Myers is in a unhappy marriage. Cousin Derek is still fishing _____, Julie is happy and working in a health food shop in Leeds. He says he is still waiting for a phone call from mum. He says he phoned her four years ago but she was in the bath. 'She's having a long bath', he snorted. They do have these periods of separation. At 1:30 he took Mabel off for Sunday luncheon and I took Samuel across the park but he didn't enjoy it, and wailed. Fish for lunch. A failure. Burnt cheese sauce.  Ally and Jane worked later. I stood with big Brian talking about the pubs of the Yorkshire dales. He remembered old George Deacon and didn't know he is deceased. Tap room quiet - like the Royal Mausoleum at Frogmore.

-=-

Saturday May 12, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Sunshine. I didn't go downstairs but sent Ally down to do half an hour in the bar with Audrey.We have decided to escape for the afternoon and the chosen victims on whom we have decided to descend are the Gadsbys of Wilsby. The whole bunch of them usually gather there after shopping at Asda and we can do them all in one swoop. Sure enough we found them assembled and arrived just in time for lunch. Little Hayley was trundling around in a trolley-type thing. She is very much like Karen. Steve is no longer driving for Burtons and has purchased an insurance round in Bramley. He didn't sound too enthusiastic about it. Samuel was entranced by Hayley. It must be a weight off his mind knowing that he isn't the only tiny person around. 

At 3:30 we went on to Guiseley. Susan sprawled in the garden like a beached whale. Christopher, full of hell, was ransacking the kitchen. Pete calmly watching a film midst the debris. Next time we see her Sue will be cuddling a new pink bundle. On to Lynn's. Sat in the garden admiring the new erection. Sandwiches on the lawn. Frances came and sat upon my knee. Lynn very brown from the constant worshipping of the sun. Back in Leeds for 7. We were packed out.

-=-

Friday May 11, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn

Ally's back ache is much the same. This is a worry because Mum has suffered with her back down the years. Childbearing is the cause of this. At least we have a good hard bed on which to rest our weary bones. Soft modern comforts must have contributed to ther numerous dodgy backs up and down this nation.

A day of no particular excitment. Ally took to bed at a reasonable hour to ease her pain. Is the pub combined with a new baby too much? She says not, but we do lead an exhausting way of life. Just look at the easy time had by Lynn and Sue. Ally says the life of a typical 'housewife' would bore her to death.

When will we see LG?  It's been a month now with no sign of him. However, it must mean he is happy with us.

-=-

Thursday May 10, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds 11

Bitterly cold in and out. More in than out in fact. Have I told you our boiler has croaked? Well it has and subsequently we have a layer of frost in the flat. Snow on the top of the wardrobe, &c. Are you getting the picture? We breakfasted around the fire, the gas fire. Downstairs is no better. Old men wrapped in overcoats sipping ice-cold ale. I shudder to watch. Karen is off attending her sister's 'hen party'. I am with Margaret (Milne). Ally upstairs ironing. She hasn't been downstairs for ages. Samuel is so time consuming. He sleeps less and less. Food too, he's something of a pig. Financially tonight is the most dead since our arrival. Unperturbed to bed. Ally has back-ache. She must get to a doctor.

See in the Daily Telegraph that Countess Spencer's son, the Hon Rupert Legge is engaged to Victoria Ottley. Other trivia ~ Lady Gweneth Cavendish, 93, grandmother of the Pcss of Wales's lady-in-waiting Gweneth Baring, has snuffed it.

-=-

Wednesday May 9, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds, &c

Still dull outside. Who cares? Our alarm clock is on the blink and refuses to sound off. Samuel laid patiently peeping through his bars and his slumbering Mama refused to follow my example of climbing out in the chill of the bedroom. The brewery phoned to say the dray isn't coming until tomorrow. This is no trouble.

Samuel almost sat unaided. He wobbled for a few seconds and then keeled over. Just after 2 we escaped to Bradford where Ally left me at Club Street to go for her hair doing ~ a perm. She was back at 5 looking like she did two years ago. A crinkly fringe, &c. At Club St until 7-ish when we returned to the pub where we went unmolestered by the bar staff. We spent a few hours upstairs together. TV abysmal.

To bed with Noel Coward's journal. He was certainly well in with the Queen Mother. She has a leaning, they say, for homosexual company, a comment which certainly upset her private secretary Sir Martin Gilliat. I can see his point. Ally, all curls, on the pillow next to me.

-=-

Tuesday May 8, 1984

 Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Overcast. We intended turning over a new leaf today by getting up at 7am and running an organised machine, only to sleep through the alarm clock and wake at 8:05. We had the usual dash around. Ally was grumpy and grumbling about everything and I stood at the kitchen window watching her muttering to herself and into the Hunslet horizon.

Samuel wants to crawl. Lay him on a rug and he'll kick furiously, but he has yet to build up enough energy to move. He has the right idea though. Ally has given him baby rice and mixed fruit slop which he eats splendidly. He is clad in woollies from Bessie and a chunky polo necked sweater resembling a lifeboat man or a whaler and not a 17 week old baby.

A good day for luncheons. We took the vast sum of £14 on food. 

Opening the flood barrier.

News: Ralph Bonner Pink MP, is no more. Another by-election. The Daily Telegraph reveals that the King of Tunisia has meningitis and now cannot marry his fiancée in Hampshire on Saturday. Prince Edouard-Xavier de Lobkowicz, 23, a scion of the royal house of Bourbon-Parma, has been found murdered in Paris. They say Gadaffi has shot some of the London siege murderers for 'bungling the job'. I do hope so. I cannot decide who I loathe the most ~ A. Scargill or Colonel Gadaffi. At least Gadaffi lives in Tripoli. Barnsley is a little closer. The Sovereign declared open the Thames Flood Barrier. Ken Livingstone was bowing and grovelling like the rest of them. Mondale and Hart are continuing to fight it out in the US of A. Ron and Nancy are visiting Ron's roots in Eire in June after the D-Day landing 40th anniversary shindig at Dunkirk. The Queen is going to Normandy on HMY Britannia. Olympic rumpus: Russia isn't goint to send a team to Los Angeles. It's a retaliatory step because Jimmy Carter stopped a US team from visiting Moscow in '80. The Olympic Games should be ended once and for all. More trouble than it's worth and invariably they end in blood and tears. It was the quietest night ever. Bed at 11:30.

Monday May 7, 1984

 Bank Holiday in UK

Moorhouse Inn, Leeds

Bitterly cold. A bank holiday instituted some years ago by a Labour government. May Day indeed. It all shreiks of Joseph Stalin to me. 

Samuel woke at 5:30 wailing in his cot. Ally and I squabbled about who loves him the most and who should pick him up. Needless to say, I do. At 7:30 I went downstairs and came up for breakfast an hour later. Frank and Bessie had slept heavily and B thinks a cold is about to erupt. They were at Susan Hellier's wedding on Saturday and endured a meagre reception at the Potters Heron. Sausage rolls, &c. The aristo neighbour on Chilland Lane is now identified as Robert (Robin) Napier, heir to a baronetcy. Frank says he's a drip.

See in the Daily Telegraph that Ronald Reagan is related to all the crown heads of Europe. They always seem to link US presidents to the old Irish kings ~ you know, Brian Boru, and the likes. Our Sovereign lady is is one of George Washington's nearest living relatives. Beat that.

A flat lunch. ______. A miserable crowd all wrapped up like sherpas. As you know our boiler is defunct. Poor Samuel will be blue. F & B left at 4:30 or so. Good old Frank did his usual chores, fixed the vacuum cleaner and hung pictures, &c. Bessie bought Samuel a pelican and enough knitting to clothe Samuel until he's 5. A quiet Bank Holiday extension until 11:30pm. So many of our customers are OAPs who go home to bed at 9:30.

-=-