Friday August 8, 1975

Last day at work for over two weeks, and I can't say I'm sorry to get away. Home at 6 o'clock in pouring rain. Thunder and lightning. The lamp in Lynn's bedroom exploded (in the storm) and quite unpeturbed she went on drying her hair with the hairdryer plugged into the same socket!

We were chasing round the house stuffing things in suitcases - Uncle Jack, Auntie Mabel, Marlene, Frank & the children arrived after tea.

At 9 o'clock we'd finished everything and John went off to the Hare with Maria to say a final goodbye. I went down with Lynn and Dave for a quick pint but didn't enjoy it one bit. It's a nerve wrecking experience going off to the other side of the world with only a younger brother and an absent minded bank clerk (no insult intended, Chris).

Mum and Dad take us to the Wellington Street bus station at 10.30 and we bid our fond farewells. Leave Leeds a few minutes after 11 and I'm awake all night until we get into Victoria coach station at 5am. John slept, as he usually does, like a three month old baby. Lucky lad.

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Thursday August 7, 1975

John and I go to Morrison's in order to get a few vital provisions for the holiday. Spend a couple of quid on tooth paste and such like, and then go down to the Fox for a quick one. See Peter N, who is having his usual Thursday lads night out without Sue. Leaving the Fox the car runs out of petrol, and we ring for Dave B to come down in order to re-fuel. We walk up to the Hare and have a few drinks before coming home at 10. Give Mum a box of chocolates and see a few TV programmes.

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Wednesday August 6, 1975

Incredibly warm day. Meet the gang in the Hare. We all sit outside, and we, that is John and I, say goodbye to everyone until the end of the month. Christine B is in tremendous spirits, and I'm quite sure now she regrets not going out with me when I asked her.

Miss Akroyd and 'Mr WH Smith' join us. The second time since Saturday!_______.

Home on the 33 bus with the two Christines. I fell and grazed my hand giving CB a piggy back, but this is soon forgotten when CD robbed the sum of 94p from the West Yorkshire Bus Co, and we both dashed to Harry Ramsden's for fish and chips.

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Tuesday August 5, 1975

Eek! It's only four days until the holiday! My first ever aeroplane journey! Two whole weeks away from all those worries!! Oh, the sun! The sea! The women! Aaarrgghh!! All these exclamation marks are too much to bear!!

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Monday August 4, 1975

Holiday in Scotland and Irish Republic. A beautiful day again. See in the paper that the temperature in Roundhay Park (Leeds) yesterday reached 90 degrees farenheit, and if that isn't some kind of miracle I don't know what is.

A historic day indeed. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother is 75 years-old today, and I'm sure she'll manage to give us 10 or 15 years more brilliant service in the future. Saw on the 6 o'clock news a sizeable crowd sing 'Happy Birthday, Dear Mother' to her outside Clarence House, and I only hope Willie Hamilton was watching. People like him must really feel as though they are banging their heads against a brick wall on days like this. The Queen is throwing a party at the palace this evening and all the Royal Family are attending except the Prince of Wales, who is on a fishing holiday in Iceland.

Dirty little (news)papers like the Sun are known to say that when it's cold over here the Royal Family board planes for sweltering regions on the equator. But here we are at boiling point in Britain, and Charles has boarded a plane and fled to the Arctic!

A feature in the EP says the Queen Mother is the first Scottish-born Queen of England. I am damn sure that one of the Plantagenets took a bride from over the border, and just for the record, the Queen Mother is a Hertfordshire lass! Sometimes I wonder just where we dig up our journalists.

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Sunday August 3, 1975

10th after Trinity. Go bugger off. 93F throughout the UK. Holding a pen isn't advisable in such weather conditions. The hottest day since July 1948 - 27 years?

Saturday August 2, 1975

The same applies today, and that is: Go away will you? I'm sure you've got better things to do than sit here reading old diaries which aren't of any importance at all.

Dave Baker's party. Need not say any more. I know what went on, and I'm the only one that matters.

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Friday August 1, 1975

OK, so its the first of August. I don't see why that should signify a sudden flurry of the written word herein. If you must know, I'm feeling remarkably lazy, and not at all creative. Bye, bye.

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Thursday July 31, 1975

Pay day. And a party over at the Central in honour of Alan Brooke and Peter Milburn, who are leaving to join Pennine Radio. The EP won't really be the same without them.

At 5.30 we all went across to the upper room of the Central, where Malcolm Barker and Geoff Hemingway are holding court like Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

A small crowd gathers to pay homage to the two who are leaving us, and Geoff Hemingway makes a brilliant speech. Sarah and I nip downstairs to the bar, and I'm sloshed well before 7 o'clock. Kathleen goes at about 7 and I stand with EP reporters. Sarah is deep in conversation with Angela Barnes and Roy Holland and we have little communication until she drags me, like a wailing schoolboy, to the last bus. I profess my undying love for her, as I always do on these occasions, but I don't think she likes the idea.

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Wednesday July 30, 1975

In just over one weeks time I will be boarding an aeroplane for the very first time. Obviously, I'm longing for a holiday, but I'm not all that sure about flying. Never experiencing anything like it before I cannot be afraid, because one can only be worried about something if one knows what that something is. I do not. People say it's similar to being on a waltzer at a fairground, or riding on a double-decker bus down a badly constructed road, but 300 people do not die instantly when a bus runs out of petrol, and neither are people dashed to death on a fairground ride. That is my worry. Don't get me wrong. I'm not scared of dying. I just want to die in better circumstances that's all. Is not wanting to drop 30,000 feet out of the sky onto a sun-scorched moutnain range a fear of dying? I don't think so. I want to die in bed, sometime in the middle of the next century, surrounded by weeping, middle-aged grandchildren.

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Tuesday July 29, 1975

Another hot day, but cloudy. I don't fancy writing tons of literature today. Michael Rhodes is feeling incredibly idle.