20090423

Tuesday August 14, 1973

Hear from the Daily Mail. They tell me they intend to publish my 'interesting' letter shortly. Knew they would do all along.

A really beautiful day. One of the hottest days in 20 years. Andy and I still at Larkfield.

Home at 5.30 - have a meal, wash and change, and catch the 55 bus to Yeadon. June already waiting outside the picture house. Go in at 6.20. She likes 'Owl and the Pussycat' a lot more than 'Bonnie and Clyde'. Quite natural for a girl I suppose. B and C was probably too bloody for her.

At 10.20 we set off on a walk round Yeadon. She gets the bus at 11 o'clock to Horsforth. I got a 55 at the bottom of Henshaw Lane. Home by 11.45.

Auntie Hilda, Uncle Tony and the girls are paying us a visit. They all sit about devouring fish and chips. Mine are in the cooker. Bid farewell to relations and bed at 12.45.

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Monday August 13, 1973

Up with the larks at 6.40. Make my way to Greenacre Hall for 7.30. Andy and I move from the Henshaw bungalows to Ivy Fitton's estate up Larkfield Mount.

The sun is really hot. Clean and paint gutters until 4.30 when Bill arrives. Sit behind the matron's house until nearly 5 o'clock.

June rings me at 7.0 o'clock and she says she wants to see 'Owl and the Pussycat' tomorrow. I certainly don't mind seeing it again. It will make it the third time in 2 years. Dave and I first saw it in 1972.

See 'Coronation Street' again. Glad June and I are going out tomorrow. Bed 11.30.

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Sunday August 12, 1973

8th after Trinity. June and I make no arrangements to go out tonight. Lynn aks John and I to escort her, Susan and Al to the cinema. I immediately agree.

'Bonnie and Clyde' and 'Owl and the Pussycat'. Both very good films. Commences at 6.20. Barbra Streisand in 'Owl and the Pussycat' is fantastic. I will love her forever.

We all pile out of the cinema at 10.20 after watching Bonnie and Clyde shot for the second time this evening! Having arrived at 6.15 we watched the last five minutes of B and C before the second house began. It ruined the entire evening for Lynn.

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Saturday August 11, 1973

Awake at 10.0am. John awakes and realises he should gave gone to work at 7.30. June rings at 10.30. She has a guilty conscience and wants to go to Leeds with me this afternoon. We meet at 2 at the bus station. John comes along too.

June is very apologetic about last night - wearing a pretty blue coat with a belt (1940s style).

I buy 'Raphsody on a theme by Paganini' by Serge Rachmaninov - very moving; and 'Roll over Beethoven' by the Electric Light Orchestra. Coming home we decide to meet outside JCT600 and walk to the Queen's on Apperley Lane. Arrive 8 o'clock. Very warm, typical August evening.

Arrive at the pub at 8.30. Christine and Philip are inside with Philip's brother, Mick. The Knowles family are disgustingly generous - Mick even paid my bus fare back to Rawdon.

June and I spend an hour in Rawdon Park - very romantic. Evidently, June's mother's first husband died on a British ship in World War II - and yet she cannot understand why Christine (Hobson) is bitter about Germans!

Home by 11.30.

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Friday August 10, 1973

Get up at 6.45. Make black coffee for my flask because the dear old milkman has not delivered yet. Arrive at the huts, just off Queensway, at 7.15. Geoff and Andy arrive first, then Eric, whom I find detestable. Bill goes mad at 8 when Stuart is still not here. Brian and Woody have a days holiday. Spend the time up to 9 emptying the huts. Move the huts by 11.45 to the Henshaw bungalows. Bill, Geoff and Eric go home for lunch. Andy goes up Yeadon for our fish and chips and doesn't get back until 12.50. Bill arrives back before I start eating!

A very hot and humorous afternoon. We sit in the huts listening to the cricket and eating ice cream (with gracious permission of Bill). Geoff and I screw up the sides of the huts in order to render them habitable.

Meet June at the Emmotts at 8.30. John chats to Sue Crosby inside. June and I sit in the bus shelter until nearly 9 o'clock. Oh! She looked beautiful. Our first meeting since July 12! A whole month. But she was in a dreadful, bitchy and awful mood. I walked out once and left her! I ask her to go to Leeds with me tomorrow afternoon, but she refuses. And, won't give me an excuse.
The end of the evening is ruined. Home by 11.45.

--==--

Thursday August 9, 1973

Get up at 6.50. Dreadfully cold, almost wintry day again. Spend the whole day finishing the spouts at Henshaw.

Very upset about not hearing from June since Monday. She rings at 7. I tell her about the trouble with the phone number, which I had explained in yesterday's letter. She quite understands. Decide to go out on Friday instead of tonight. Relieved that she's contacted me. Blimey! I thought THE end had come!

After watching the 9 o'clock news I write to the 'Daily Mail' opposing the views expressed yesterday by a correspondent re Princess Anne and Mark Phillips. Hope they publish it.

Go to bed at 11.30.

--==--

Wednesday August 8, 1973

A perishingly cold, bleak day! My cold, however, is greatly improved.

Andy and I paint the inside of the garage doors again - an emergency operation only ever carried out in the rain. No word from Bill about quitting the force. Andy and I disgracefully laugh at this.

Write to June, who still does not contact me. Also write to the 'Daily Express' in answer to a silly old bag who suggested in a letter that Princess Anne and Mark Phillips should take 'needy' honeymoon couples on the Royal Yacht Britannia when they marry in November. What rot!
How many people in this world would take a pack of complete strangers away on honeymoon with them? Princess Anne may be the daughter of the reigning sovereign of Gt Britain but she's no saint...

--==--

Tuesday August 7, 1973

Rains all day. Had rum in my flask again. By evening my cold is greatly improved.

Watch tv. See 'The Winslow Boy' at 6.30. A very good film indeed. Makes English justice seem perfect. Bed 10.30.

--==--

Monday August 6, 1973

Feeling terrible. Rains solidly all day. Cold worsening. I put a large shot of rum in my flask and battle through nine hours of painting garage doors, three handkerchiefs and two phensic tablets.
So glad to be home at 5.30.

June rings at 7. So wonderful to hear her voice again. Fortunately she doesn't want to go out tonight - I am in no fit state. We decide to leave it until Friday evening.

See 'Coronation Street'. Bed 10.30. This cold ought to have cleared by tomorrow.

--==--

Sunday August 5, 1973

7th after Trinity. Awake feeling rather ill. Last nights chase around Horsforth in torrential rain cannot have helped the situation. By lunchtime I realise I am not going to get through next week without bearing the burden of a terrible illness. By 6.0 I cannot stop sneezing.

Sit through a Peter Sellers film which is very funny, but by 10.30 I am in a shocking state. Go to bed with a rum coffee, hot water bottle and two phensic tablets. Sleep soundly.

--==--

Saturday August 4, 1973

Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother is 73. It is such a shame that she outlived her husband for such a long time. Not that I would have wanted her to pre-decease him. But, it must be much more enjoyable for couples to die together. Poor Bertie, forever fixed at 57, waiting up in Heaven for Queen Elizabeth to join him. But without her, Gt Britain would be an unhappier place.

John and I go to the Emmotts at 7.30 but only dear Sue Crosby is to be seen. At 9 we decide to go to Horsforth to see Sue Bottomley and enquire whether June will ever be coming back to Britain.

Poor Sue answers the door standing in the dark, wearing only her night clothes. She says June will be back late on Sunday, or early on Monday.

Oh to think that next week we will be back to sanity at last! Make full speed for Sue Crosby's. A terrible evening and John and I get soaked - we decide to abandon Sue and come home. Arrive home very wet at 11.30.

--==--

Monday May 21, 1984

 Bank Holiday in Canada Moorhouse Inn, Leeds Lord Willoughby de Broke is 88; Lord Clydesmuir 67; Lord Maxwell 65, Mr J. Malcolm Fraser 54, a...