Tuesday August 19, 1975

I wake up at about 10 but don't really think the others could possibly do the same after the events of this morning, i.e. from 2am onwards. After crawling past us last night in the bar they helped each other up to our room and dissolved into fits of laughter. When I'd rid myself of the women, and two cheese toasted sandwiches and several gallons of Coca Cola later, I went up to the room and John said he wanted another drink. We went down to the bar where he had a pernod and I had a beer. At 3am we came back to the room, and immediately John said he was going out again. This he did, and half an hour later he rolled in after even more drink. I helped him into bed and switched off the light. Chris hadn't stirred all the time this was going on.

At 10am then I was surprised to see Chris alive, well, and kicking. Leaving John deep in sleep we go down to the bar. Chris goes off to buy a newspaper and comes back with 'The Sun' of all things and shows me the headlines on page one. 'Princess Anne gets obscene phone calls'. This really is too much. First they try to kidnap and kill her, and now it's dirty phone calls. How did some pervert manage to lay hands on the princess's private number? The Post Office says that Special Branch are listening in to all her phone calls.

Stayed at the Manchester Arms until quite late in the evening and walked Denise and Diane home to their so-called hotel. No Caracola Club until dawn, and come back to the Osiris for a couple of drinks.

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Monday August 18, 1975

I seem to be waking up even earlier this week. 8.30am today! Lay in bed contemplating the ceiling until 10.30 when I rouse the two sleeping beauties from their slumbers.

We get a cool drink in the bar before nipping off to the beach, which is far too hot.

Back at the hotel we sit around in the sunshine until lunchtime with yesterday's Sunday Express. Not a very nice newspaper by any means, and I do wish they wouldn't give so much publicity to Reginald Maudling. The little creep is just as much involved in the Poulson Affair as Pottinger was, and I do think his criminal tendencies tend to colour all and everything he says.

The worst thing about this holiday is the food. I realise that we British are a fastidious bunch, but all the same I do think the menu could be improved. Oh, for the joys of Mum's cooking!

After lunch we go downstairs for a drink, and whilst I'm paying the barman John and Chris do one of their disappearing tricks. After searching the hotel from top to bottom I take a beer upstairs where I sit on the balcony to spectate at yet another storm. These Continental storms are only short-lived affairs.

Out on the town as usual after dinner. I meet Diane and Denise in the Manchester Arms, and John and Chris go off on a piss-up. We eat chips galore, and I bring them back to the hotel where, to our amusement, John and Chris crawl past us in an attempt to escape from the two women.

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Sunday August 17, 1975

Up at 9am, or at least I was. John and Chris remained asleep until well after 11, but me being the athletic type makes staying abed all morning an impossibility. Sit in the hot sun with a lemonade, and Sue and Jackie from Chiswick join me later.

See in yesterday's Daily Mail that the Birmingham Pub Bombers got life imprisonment. Also saw that London had its worst rain in 100 years. Over six inches fell in under 24 hours!! It makes going abroad seem well worth while when reading items like that.

Chris and I take out tradition dip in the Med after lunch, and at about 4pm it begins to rain & does so for about an hour. We stay in the sea for the major part of it and watch the thunder and lightning crack and flash over the Majorcan hills. Return to the hotel greatly refreshed and the place feels a good deal more healthy for the cool rainwaters.

Don't go to the Caracola Club in the evening, or at least Chris and I don't, and instead we stay in the Manchester Arms until after 1am with Diane and Denise, from Carlisle. They drink pints of lager and I'm on straight pernod. Diane goes home to sleep at about 1.30 and Chris goes off for a walk with Denise. I make my way back to the hotel and clamber into bed where I sleep soundly, undisturbed by the drunken arrival of John at 5am.

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Saturday August 16, 1975

Once again to the Caracola in the evening. Dance with a beautiful German girl, but we fade out because of language difficulties. If only I'd taken in all that rubbish Mr Martin used to reel out to us at Benton Park. But alas, you don't think of things like that when you're cooped up in class.

Chris leaves early and Denise and Diane from Carlisle come after he's gone. I'm astounded to hear from Denise that ______went round to her hotel room this afternoon, had a few drinks and stormed out after an argument. Why didn't he tell us? ______.

I leave at 2 and come back and sit with a couple of birds from Salford and a drunken bloke from London. They are all stoned, and when a woman from the fifth floor yells down at us to be quiet, one of the girls screams: 'piss off!' at the top of her voluminous voice. I laughed at the crudeness of it all.

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Friday August 15, 1975

The telephone in the hotel room wakes us at 8.50. The coach is waiting downstairs to take us to the Caves of Drach, Majorca's answer to Stump Cross Caverns. I've never seen anyone get out of bed more quickly. Dashing out of the room we locked ourselves out, leaving the tickets for the excursion on the bedside table. The coach driver was sympathetic and said he would collect them on our return.

After a ten minute journey we arrive at the caves in almost tropical heat. They are really outstanding and beautiful - the caves that is - but it's hard to appreciate them after having had only one hours sleep. We emerge one hour later after being serenaded on an underwater lake by a chap playing a piano in a rowing boat. Offenbach and Chopin I think it was - we laughed and giggled throughout. What a ridiculous sight.

Grotesquely hot day, and after spending the remainder of the morning in Porto Christo, a coastal resort near Calla Millor, we drove back to the hotel for lunch.

Out on the town in the evening.

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Thursday August 14, 1975

A really hot day, and I fear we've been doing too much sunbathing. My chest and legs are white hot, and I'm on the verge of collapse. Why have I spent over £100 to burn myself and see my flesh fall off?

Meet two girls from Chiswick called Sue and Jackie. Down at the Caracola Club we are in the midst of a nasty incident when all the women we've had this week arrive on the scene at the same time. John ends up with 'Chiswick Sue', Chris has 'Carlisle Denise' and I have 'Carlisle Nameless'. I was so intoxicated I cannot remember her name. We had a great time and Chris and I go back to the Carlisle girls room in a local hotel. I end up falling asleep until 7.30, and then me and Chris stagger back to our hotel to the jeers of the Spanish cleaning ladies who are just starting work. Fall into bed with the prospect of one hours sleep ahead of us.

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Wednesday August 13, 1975

Feeling rough and grotty I awoke fully clothed on top of the bed at 11am. John and Chris are lecturing me in a sarcastic manner on the subject of 'burning the candle at both ends', and making belittling remarks about me in general. I told them that John had been a good deal worse on Monday, and lied my head off when I said at least I hadn't been sick. They didn't know I'd deposited my vomit over the balcony.

At 12 we have an appointment with Doris and Ivy on the terrace, and after one Coca Cola Doris persuaded me to return to my bed. I do so readily, and sleep until 3pm, missing my lunch. Recover sufficiently in the afternoon to take a dip in the sea, and then the pool, and by dinner time I'm OK.

Back to the Caracola Club in the evening and meet a completely new bunch of women. They're from Carlisle this time. The ones we had on Monday incidentally were little Kent dwellers. John and Chris depart at 3, but I stay until 5am doing Spanish dancing with the locals and smoking my bloody head off.

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Tuesday August 12, 1975

A terrible drunken occassion. At 7.30 we, that is John, Chris, me and 30 others from the hotel went to the Barbecue. When I say 'the barbecue' I mean the weekly piss-up in the open air for the tourists - the sort of thing that's the same at resorts all over Europe. John and Chris didn't get drunk at all, but I made friends with two sexy over-50s named Doris and Ivy, who bought me a bottle of local champagne, &c. Didn't feel too bad on the coach coming home, but after having had a pernod in the bar followed by a black coffee, I was quite ready for anything. Getting up to our room I happened to bump into the lads from next door, and they gave me a large glass of Tequilla. That finished me off, good and proper. After yelling abuse at a crowd of Germans I went on to vomit over the balcony and then fell through the french windows onto the floor. Insensible just isn't the word for it.

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Monday August 11, 1975

The pattern now seems to have set. We lounge around all day without a care in the world. In the pool for half an hour, and flat out on a camp bed or lounger for the next half an hour, and then repeat.

John drank too much and was violently sick all over the bedroom after returning from the Caracola Club at 3am. Not a pretty sight.

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Sunday August 10, 1975

11th after Trinity. A lovely day, but not as warm as we imagined it would be. Laze around all day in and around the swimming pool, and spend just a bit of time on the beach.

The Caracola Club once again in the evening where British women seem to cry out for good British men. The German population seems to have arrived in Majorca like a plague of locusts, and a nice Yorkshire accent warms the hearts of millions of our fellow country women.

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Saturday August 9, 1975

Get into Victoria Coach Station at 5am and immediately make enquiries about how to get to Heathrow. An amiable little porter directs us to a British Airways terminal and we get a bus direct to the airport at 6 o'clock. We make our way to the departure place, and what a relief it is to find Chris waiting! Success! We'd made it! (Forgive the Queen Victoria style punctuation). You have no idea what it meant to know that no hitch had arisen.

Fly at 8.05am. Unforgetable experience. The plane was quite smaller than I imagined it would be. John was near the window, Chris in the middle and I was in the aisle. The sun was brilliant above the thundery London sky, and two hours later we were in the heat at Palma airport. John's case came on another flight, and we messed about for hours waiting for it.

The hotel was reached by about 3pm and we were impressed by it. After all, it is a two star one.

Have two great meals before going out on the town. Find a discotheque called the Caracola Club, and stay until 2am. I am asbolutely sure we shall all have the time of our lives here in Majorca.

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