20090420

Monday June 25, 1973

'O' level Biology exam. Get up at 7.35. Raining and thundering. Absolutely hateful. Mother goes back to bed with a really terrible cold. I make myself a cup of tea and sit listening to Tony Blackburn until 10. He sings 'Happy Birthday to you' to Lord Mountbatten of Burma who is 73 today. I didn't think they liked royalty on Radio 1.

Mother is full of cold, the weather is rotten, and I've run out of monetary capital and all financial aid. What a state we are all in! Dad drives me to school in thunder and lightning. Begin Biology at 1.50. A ridiculous examination. Failed again. Finish at 3.50. Louise is at school for the last time! I will never see her again after today. I wave her off in her car at 4.15 - very poignant moment. Benton Park will never be the same without her. Come home on the 4.20 55 bus. June rings at 7. Evidently Janet poisoned her old woman on her very first day as a home help. June began work today and experienced a 90 year-old, one-armed imbecile! But she says he was sweet. She can't afford to go out on Tuesday evening -we're going out on Wednesday instead. Life is hell without her at school but we seem to enjoy our evenings out all the more due to our longer partings. One can easily get bored of someone when one is with her every hour of the day.

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Sunday June 24, 1973

Get up at 1 o'clock. Absolutely disgraceful. Have lunch at 1.30. Good old Yorkshire pudding! Read the Sunday papers and watch television until 6. Have strawberries and cream for tea. John and I prepare to go out at 7.30 and walk down into Guiseley. We go see June's sister, Christine, on Netherfield Rd. I thought June would be staying with her but she isn't arriving until 11pm. June's Mum and Dad with Sue went to Newquay this morning.

Get the 8 o'clock bus to the Emmotts. June arrives 10 minutes later. Dave and Ivy are sitting comfortably inside. Dave tells me that Harry is now going out with a girl from Shipley. Harry and Sue is all over - the romance is dead! John will be pleased. Dave saw Harry this afternoon and he told Dave that he wouldn't be going to the Emmotts or Fleece again if he knows that John will be there. The boy is certainly making a name for himself. Dave wants to go down to the Drop in Guiseley to see Patrice Saunders about a job. John goes with him whilst June and I stay at the E. They arrive back at 10.15. See Sue Crosby and get into serious trouble. Whilst Sue C, Dave and I stand laughing outside the gents - Dave locked the door with a bolt on the outside -a poor bloke inside was banging and trying to get out - all we could do was laugh. When Dave finally let him out the bloke flew at him yelling: "you won't come back into this bloody place again" - and still all we could do was roll about hysterically. Go back to June and Ivy - the old lady found it especially amusing and goes across to further embarrass the poor chap. Dave and John go home in the car.

June and I get the 35 to Guiseley. I escort her down to Netherfield - very romantic. Home by 12 o'clock. Have some toast and a boiled egg. Bed by 12.35. A fantastic day. June and I certainly NOT cooling off - praise the Lord!

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Saturday June 23, 1973

Sleep until 12. Get up and eat a small lunch. John went to work at 7am. He must feel really terrible. It rains and thunders slightly, but this doesn't deter Mother and Father from mowing the lawns. I listen to records until tea time - not tired in the least after last night's excursion.

Have tea and see 'Dr Who'. Mother, Father, Lynn and Sue go see Grandma Gadsby's films and slides of Italy - they leave at 7 o'clock. See a St Trinians film with John. Prepare to go out at 8.30 - catch 9 o'clock bus with John - arrive at Emmotts at 9.25. The Emmotts is packed out and although rain is falling slightly several people are drinking in the car park. I battle my way to the bar where Sue Crosby is serving. Get two pints of lager. June and Sue B are not arrived yet. Hirsty arrives. June comes in at 9.40. I battle my way back to bar once again - after 5 minutes get served. We all stand in the porch - the rain eases off. Have a really excellent time. A couple of June's friends pass by and keep her talking until 10.30. A right pair of catty bitches I ever did see. Sue is very disgruntled by June ignoring us. But the poor darling needs some outlet from this tiresome rigmarole of spending every spare moment shut up with me at the Emmotts! Go across to the chippie - everyone eats except June who is quite starving herself. Sue buys a massive bottle of fizzy pop - everyone is totally bloated by the time we reach the bottom road. Before making any decisions about tomorrow night the girls bus arrives - Christine is on board - we savagely wave. John and I get the 32. Home by midnight.

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Friday June 22, 1973

Get up at 8.30 and leave for Benton on the 9.30 bus. Arrive 9.50. Janet Roots is the only person there. Sit about until 10.30 when Christine arrives. Play consequences with them until 12.30. Very hot day indeed. Sat outside for 10 minutes but found it overpowering. Went to the chippie by myself. Came back and sat and ate them with Christine and Janet.

Christine and Philip are not coming out tonight - they want a quiet weekend. Played my new card trick until 2 - only Steve Tiffany could guess it. Dave arrives in the car at 2 o'clock. Andy Graham and Co. go out for a spin with him - Christine thinks he's mad in doing so. Dale and Willie are starting off at the Fleece at 6.45 - much too early for me. June arrives at school at 3. We go to Rawdon Park and on the way I bump into Bill Dixon - he cannot promise me the painting job but he's going to battle it out with his senior officer.

Go back to school where we collect our gear. Go home on the 4.15 55. Wash hair and ready for 7. Dave picks up John and I at 7.45. June, Dale, Willie, Jeff Hogg, Tiff, etc are already at the Fleece. We work our way up Town Street. By 10.30 no one is in any fit state to do any sane action. Geoffrey Hogg is violently sick in the beer garden at the Grey Horse - so badly that it puts everybody off drinking. June, Hursty, John and I go to the Intercon at the Cow and Calf in Dave's second trip. Arrive there at 11.30. John begins dancing immediately and again he never leaves the floor. A great evening. Tiff, Dale and Willie get absolutely stoned. John seems to get on very well with them. Very good discs are played and I drink only eraticly - do not get drunk. John and his mates go home in the first trip. Willie, who is sick, Hirtsy, June and I sit on Ilkley Moor until 3.15am. June and I sit alone whilst soft dew falls. Very romantic. Dave collects us at 3.15. Home by 3.35.

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Thursday June 21, 1973

'O' level Economics exam. Got up at 8.10 and left on the 8.30 bus - arrive at 9 at Benton. Louise and I go to Biology. A rotten exam - finish it at 11.30. Go down to Rawdon with Louise afterwards.

Sit with Dave, Christine and Martin V-B looking at the slides we took a couple of weeks ago. MM makes us all very nervous by trying to do last minute revising for Economics. At 1.30 Christine shows me how to calculate elasticity of demand - which, luckily, appeared on section A of the exam paper. Section A was dreadful. Section B fairly straight forward. August 27 here we come! Once again it's in the lap of the Gods. It's all over!They're finished with at last! No more exams until at least November.

Collapse in relief in the common room afterwards, Have a very funny do with Christine. But feel mad that June did not come to school as she promised. Dave and I fight with Malcolm Thomas and struggle down for the 55 bus at 4.55. Wait until 5.15. John gets on the bus at Henshaw Lane.

Have tea at 6. Read Albert and Victoria until 7.30. June rings me from her sister's in Guiseley - speak with little Karen on the phone. June's coming tomorrow afternoon. Feeling very tired. Read until I have a bath. Bed at 11 o'clock.


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Wednesday June 20, 1973

Wake at 10.30. Very dark and rainy. A letter awaits me from June and it's very charming indeed - she also agrees that Sunday evening was the most pleasant evening we have spent together for a long time.

Dad saw Bill Dixon yesterday and he asked him whether I want my council painting job back in the summer holidays. I think about it and agree yes. It will mean nearly £20 a week. The CW will have to go. But Lynn could work Tuesdays and Fridays, and Christine Dibb Thursday and Saturday - splitting my evenings equally between the two of them.

Attempt to do Economics until 12. Have lunch by candlelight at 12.45 - weather still dark and shocking. Revise until 4 when Jennie Rawnsley comes round to see the girls. She demands to know why I haven't bought 'Tie a Yellow Ribbon round The Old Oak Tree' by Dawn. Didn't have the heart to tell her it stinks!

Have tea. Watch 'Coronation Street'. Very guiltily I go on to see 'Special Branch' when I should be doing Economics revision, but what's the point in working myself into an early grave at 18?

Come to bed at 11.30 after seeing an awful play in which a student cut his throat in the bath - the bathwater turned bright red! What a way to commit suicide! I could never find the courage it must take to do away with oneself. Besides, I value human life too highly.

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Tuesday June 19, 1973

Mama and Papa celebrate 19 happy years of married bliss. Awoke at 9.30 to the sound of Dad smashing rocks on the drive. The sky is very dark and stormy but the day is generally warm. By 11.30 it's raining. The first day of Royal Ascot.

We give Mother and Dad some nice looking gadgets. Bottle openers and cork screws, etc. Quite expensive. Dad bought Mum a £2 bouquet from Carbutt's in Guiseley.

The Duchess of Windsor is 77 tolday. Last year when she came over from France for the duke's funeral everyone thought that some great reconcilliation had taken place. But she flew back to Paris and nothing has been heard of her since. The question now arises: will they allow her to be buried next to her husband at Frogmore, or is she permanently exiled?

Have a nice lunch at 1. Still very little revision done. Mum and Dad go out shopping at 2.30 and I am tempted by the television and watch 'Public Eye'. Mum and Dad home at 4.30.

Lynn and Sue show me a card trick - it takes until 6 for all the family to get it.

Revise from 6.30 until 9.0. See news at 9. Roger Delgado, 'The Master' in 'Dr Who' has been killed in an accident in Turkey. Saturday evenings won't be the same without him. See a good programme about the work of Lady Allen of Hurtwood. Write June a lengthy letter.

Came to bed at 12.30. Mama and Papa who went out at 8 came in at 1 o'clock.

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Monday June 18, 1973

The 158th anniversary of the defeat of the French armies at the Battle of Waterloo. Get up at 8am. Have a bowl of cereals. Mum goes to work at 8.30. Lynn and Sue follow on to school. I do the cleaning up.

The weather is really too beautiful for description. June wasn't bursting out all over last night, but I sure was! Yesterday's visit by Auntie Mabel and clan was very enjoyable. Won't be seeing them until July 7 when Brian marries Valerie Jean Hutchinson, of Bramley.

Have a bath and wash my hair at 10. Mum comes home at 12.40. Have a bit of lunch and Mum prepares dinner for tonight. She intends sitting out while the sun is nice. I listen to the Johnnie Walker Show on Radio 1 and then get ready to go to Rawdon with some library books which are a week overdue. Caught the 2 o'clock bus. I missed seeing June by 5 minutes. See Janet Roots who says they were thrown out of the Woolpack at lunchtime. Very hot afternoon. Go on to the library and come home at 3.30.

Read until 5.30. Early dinner. See 'Coronation Street'. Lynn comments that a women on a tv commercial is 'ugly'. I think the opposite as say no woman under the age of 25 can possibly be ugly. A woman doesn't begin to look ugly until she is a 58 year old, toothless, hunchbacked,
straggly-haired old dear, standing 4ft in height, with a 49ins bust hanging about her waist. She only laughs at this.

Read until 10.30. Bed at 11.30.

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Sunday June 17, 1973

Trinity Sunday. Lynn wakes me at 10.30. It's Father's Day. It's a commercial thing invented by the people who makes greeting cards - and a cheap copy of Mothering Sunday which is now also very commercially backed. Give Papa 7 cigars costing 77p.

Sue and Lynn made Mum and Dad's breakfast. He also received a 1lb box of toffees and some nutty chocolate.

Very, very cloudy day but warm. Dress and read until 12.30. Blast! Starting revising for Economics tomorrow. Life is one long swot these days. June rings at 2.45.

Have lunch at 2. Read Albert and Victoria until 3. Auntie Mabel, Uncle Jack, Marlene and Frank, Mark, and Debbie came at 3 and stayed until 8. The children, Mark, 5, and Debbie, 3, are beautiful with blond hair and hazel eyes. Auntie Mabel and I go onto the lawn and organise races for the children. Frank takes me to Westfield Fisheries at 6.30 - fish and chips 9 times!

Sit until 8.20, and get a lift to Rawdon in Frank's car. They drop me off near the Emmotts. Auntie Mabel laughs when I say "see you in church". Go to Emmotts. June and I drink lager. At 9.20 we walk to the Fleece, arriving at 10.10. Bust the fly on my jeans in the gents toilets. June gives me a safety pin and we went into Horsforth park so that she could fix my zip. June is the one and only. Come home at 11.40.

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Saturday June 16, 1973

Read Duff's 'Albert and Victoria'. Much better than Woodham-Smith's biography. It raises doubts about Prince Albert's parentage. He suggests Albert's real father was Leopold I, King of the Belgians or some court chamberlain of Jewish extraction in Coburg. Fancy, Queen Victoria marrying a bastard! I have taken a real liking to the young Queen Victoria - not lacking in physical attractiveness either.

Get up at 10.30. Go with John to Leeds on the 11 o'clock train. Arrive 11.15. I buy some shirts whilst John spends £25 on a suit for Brian and Valerie's wedding - including a pair of fantastic shoes -adding about four inches to his height. Arrive Guiseley at 2.40. I bought a pair of polaroid sunglasses for £3.25.

Lynn no longer has a job. She and Al resigned this morning after a squabble over working hours.

Have a cup of tea and watch 'Dr Who'. Go to CW at 7. Sue and Toffer are excited about the holidays. Imagine, no work next weekend! No CW until June 29. Pauline is in good spirits and slightly sun-burned. Toffer and I had a 'Hairy Leg' contest. I won! Come home at 1.40. Sit an hour with 2 boiled eggs. Read a bit of Albert and Victoria. Bed 2.45.

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Friday June 15, 1973

'A' Level History Paper II. Another hot day. June is busting out all over! Get up at 7 o'clock AM. Have only a grapefruit and go to Benton Park on the 8 o'clock 55 - arriving 8.25. Sit revising Bismarck until 9.10. Carol and Sheila arrive - both looking very pale. Enter exam at 9.25. Napoleon III did crop up - but in a round-about sort of way. Write more than yesterday, but yesterday was definately a better paper. Anyway, it's in the lap of the God's now, as it were.

See June, who I fear I have neglected this past week. We're going to the Emmotts on Sunday for the first time in weeks. She's really fantastic. She and Christine go in to Yeadon at 2.30 to see about jobs as 'home helps' in the summer recess. I laugh at the thought of it. June and Christine as char women cleaning around for 6 weeks looking like Hilda Ogdens - some folk will do owt for brass!

Go to CW - play 20 questions and charades - hysterical!

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Saturday May 19, 1984

A warm, gentle day. Ally and I took off to town with Samuel at 1pm. We didn't take the pram and I carried baby for two hours, by the end...