Wednesday September 22, 1976

News: Unfortunate naval fellows drowned in HMS Littleton yesterday. Rabbit for tea. Superb too. John rings at 6.30 and we all panic, saying unto one another: "Is this it?". But he just says the car has broken down near the Co-op. Papa goes off to see what assistance he can give. _____.

Move back into my bedroom. It now resembles the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. [You know, that was the place where Catherine the Great said: 'Let them eat cake.'] It is splendid though. I had difficulty sleeping though because of those horrid French tourists, herded together like sheep, filing through the place as though it's open to the public. What a liberty! What would Marie Antoinette have said if she'd still been living here? [Didn't she coin the phrase about not being able to have your cake and eat it?] All answers please on a stamped addressed envelope to the King George Fund for Sailors.

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Tuesday September 21, 1976

Sorry if I'm neglecting daily bulletins on Maria's condition but things really have ceased to happen. She shows as many signs of giving birth as I do. Oops, I've just had quins. No, but rely on me, as soon as I hear anything you'll be the first to know.

Oh no!! You are not going to like this at all. Do you recall what I said on the previous page about 'the YP plodding along quite nicely...' &c? Well I'm very sorry to say that the paragraph at the bottom of the page is one catastrophic error and should have appeared on this page. It was tonight that the Duke of Edinburgh didn't get lost at sea, and it was on this eventful night that Leonard James Callaghan continued to breathe and his heart continued to pump regardless of the Rhodesian question, and the somewhat 'murky' past of Davina Sheffield.

Monday night was in fact a quiet one spent in front of another Dirk Bogarde film on the BBC. Is it true that he is homosexual, or is it a figment of my imagination? [Come on you lot! Take down a copy of 'Who was Who in the Acting World of the Twentieth Century' and look up Mr Bogarde for me].

Still sleeping on a camp bed.

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Monday September 20, 1976

Another day decorating my bedroom, and Lynn & Susan's. Sue joined Dad and I today and proved a great help. A great kid is our Sukey. By 5 o'clock I've put the finishing touches to to the window in my room and the final completed effect is impressive.

Dad seems determined to go ahead with his meeting with the chief constable on Wednesday and his resignation is imminent. Mum is getting upset about it too because Dad doesn't seem to know what to do if, or when, he does eventually resign. Discuss the pub business at tea time again. Oh God - talk about history repeating itself.

The YP was plodding along quite nicely and it always gives me the feeling that it wouldn't really miss me if I didn't turn up for work. Must have something to do with the enormity of the place. Nothing in the news. The Prime Minister is still alive and the Duke of Edinburgh hasn't been lost at sea or anything, and so I take my leave at 11pm.

Have fried liver & onions and then collapse on my camp bed with revolting indigestion. Liver just doesn't go down well with me at all. Just two words before I go - Neville Chamberlain.

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Sunday September 19, 1976

14th after Trinity. No news from Maria. The poor little baby must be tired of waiting. It is nine or ten days late now. Will he/she come on John's 20th birthday next Saturday? Wouldn't it be great? [All say 'yes, Michael'].

All day painting my bedroom. That is 12 noon until 8.30. Dark green walls, pale green door, window, and radiator, &c. It looks smashing.

Watch John Cleese in 'Fawlty Towers' and then Richard Attenborough in '10 Rillington Place' - a film about John Christie and Timothy Evans. Good film but a ghastly story really. Lynn was frightened to death.

Sleep on a camp bed in the lounge for the fifth night in succession. Reading 'The Beatles' until after 1.30.

The Sunday papers are full of Davina Sheffield again. The future Queen returned to London from the outer Hebrides this afternoon and was met by a mob of 200 press photographers. Her future Majesty then bolted into a public convenience and remained concealed for 30 minutes until a young policeman managed to procure her escape. Everyone seems hell bent on marrying the prince & Miss Sheffield.

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Saturday September 18, 1976

Spend all day with Dad in my bedroom hanging [wall]paper. Peter N joins us after lunch and we manage to get most of it done by the evening. Poor Dad is in one hell of a state. The threatened closure of Guiseley Police Station is driving him to the brink of insanity. On Wednesday he is to have a personal inteview with the Fuhrer [Ronald Gregory, Chief Constable of West Yorkshire] and the outcome of the meeting could decide Dad's future in the police force.

Out with Susan & Peter to the Hare & Hounds. Christine Dibb comes in with her ear-ringed boyfriend but leave after an hour or so. Carole is entertaining the boy [Peter] Fogarty at the opposite end of the bar and no convsersation takes place at all. They go too. CB arrives and we have a few laughs. Sue & Pete go off to the Menston Arms and come back and collect me at 11 after leaving me alone with CB for an hour. We chatted about times gone by, as we always do, and when Peter came in she went off to the tap room to get a lift to Oakwood Hall with one of the bar staff. A right girl is our CB!

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Friday September 17, 1976

With Lynne to the Hare & Hounds at 9 o'clock. Only CB and Martyn join us. We have a good laugh. I don't know what Lynne thinks of CB. It didn't help at Peter's party when CB and Roger broke all moral codes and spent several hours in one of the Mather's bedroom suites. Lynne gave me a postcard today with the words: 'If Only the People I like All Liked Each Other' inscribed on the front. How apt.

Just Lynne and I back to Pine Tops where we watch the end of a Vincent Price film after which I frighten Lynne into a state of terror with my impersonation of a ghoul. I also had a skirmish with the boyfriend of Susan Walters. Nothing worth a mention here though.

Lynne returns to Thornton le Dale and I have no idea when I shall see her again. She may be travelling from T le D to Burley in Wharfedale every day next week and she's staying here on Friday and Saturday. Of course, it's Eileen's party at Dewsbury on Saturday [John's 20th birthday].

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Thursday September 16, 1976

Still no Maria developments. Go with Lynne to the Hare & Hounds, the Red Lion and then the Stoney Lea. The latter place is packed with prostitutes and what appears to be a coach party of married, fifty year-old women, set free for the night. Disgusting. One tart in particular was seducing a little chap young enough to be her grandson.

Lynne is gorgeous. She's in a new pullover - Angora wool I think. Her hair is flowing too. She is more luscious with her locks hanging loose. Not that she is unattractive with her hair in a bun you understand, but you know how sexy I think long hair is. Don't I go on at times?

Home at 1.30am and Lynne almost has a weep in the car. Thornton le Dale may well be an attractive village but the Mathers should never have moved there. She had a savage argument with Peter on Sunday about the whole business. Sad.

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Wednesday September 15, 1976

Mum and Dad go to Auntie Mabel's for a couple of hours. Susan, Lynn, Peter and I take up the carpet in my room and begin tearing the wallpaper from the walls as though we're berserk. The redecoration of Pine Tops is under way. Susan laughs at my colourful language as I roll up the carpet and pays me the marvellous complement of being like John Cleese - or 'Basil Fawlty' whom he so remarkably portrays.

Mum and Dad return home at 11pm. They saw cousin Jackie and her boyfriend Peter at Marlene's [they hadn't been to Mabel's at all]. Mum asks me if Peter is the one who is married and I say yes. Nothing further was said on the subject. To bed knackered.

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Tuesday September 14, 1976

Derek Naylor comes laughing into the office saying the future Queen of England is a "scrubber". Sarah laughs at this whimsy, but I'm far too contemplative. One would think that an experienced journalist [as Derek is] would realise that the things one picks up in the Sunday [news]papers cannot be believed, and the papers are only fit to wrap ones fish and chips in. Derek seems to be eaten away with mock disgust at the tales of Miss Sheffield's sexual escapades with old-Etonian James Beard, brother of the Countess of Normanton. How do we know that this woman will even marry the prince? And perhaps more importantly, even if she and HRH settle down in wedlock by the time comes for her to be crowned Queen Consort will she have anything to be Queen Consort of? One things for sure, the crown jewels will have gone. The Pakistanis want the Koh-I-Noor diamond back, and it's only a matter of time before the Welsh National party demand the return of the Welsh gold used for generations by members of the Royal Family in wedding rings. Davina really ought to give it serious thought.

Lynne rings at 7.30 to enquire after Maria. She is having a boring time in Bradford and mentioned something about an argument with Peter at Thornton-le-Dale over the weekend. [She's] not too happy really. Arrange to meet on Thursday. Tony rings to see if I want to go out with him and Stuart on Thursday. He mentions something about a change of job in Smith's. Seems as though he got it straight away.

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Monday September 13, 1976

Harry takes me to the bus stop at 8.15 and I bid him farewell until we next meet. Sure has been a good weekend. Feel something like how Richard Burton must feel like after he's been on the bottle for three or four days on end. I shall have to go to some sort of hydro to dry out my pickled liver, or kidneys [indeed which ever organs succumb to pickling after the consumption of vast quantities of alcohol].

Ring Lynne at lunchtime but her boss reminds me she's on a course this week in Bradford. Also ring home: still no developments from Maria. My nephew is four days late now.

Back at home: ring Lynne at Auntie Lilian's at 8.30 but she isn't in. Start watching a Dirk Bogarde film and it's midnight before I think of phoning again. Aunt Lil would probably have a coronary at this time of night.

Continue reading 'The Beatles' by Hunter Davies. Feeling shagged out still.

The Davina Mary Sheffield saga gathers momentum. We [Joe public] should read nothing into this until Buckingham Palace issues a denial. They only issue denials to cover up the truth. I approve of her anyway, even if one reader writing in the EP thinks 'Queen Davina' sounds odd.

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Sunday September 12, 1976

13th after Trinity. Awakened at 12.45pm by the survivors of last night's knees-up. Just time to leap into some clothes and it's back to the Commercial once again for a liquid luncheon. The cast of 'Emmerdale Farm' are still in the carpark and Frazer Hines and the YTV wardrobe man are in the bar. Pissed on stella artois. Talk to Lynn and Sam. Sam is certainly taken with Lynn and he keeps telling me so. Marita & MM come in with a girl but stand at the other end of the pub. Marita comes over and asks about Maria. Joined also by Raymond [Bond] again. He and Carol are going to Rhyll next week and Dad proceeds to give them a run down of the bad points of Welsh life and of the of the Welsh peasants. Since Carnarvon in July 1969 father has harboured a massive loathing for the Welsh people and all they stand for. Home at 2.30. I am sick. All that lager proved too much for me.

Sit chatting about family history with Harry, Sam & Dad. Goings on in the family 50 years ago seem like something from a different world now.

The Sunday papers have decided that Davina Sheffield will be the bride of the Prince of Wales. I'm still in the air about this. No point in discussing it until an engagement is announced. After tea of salad, trifle and cakes we all watch the film 'The Go Between' which isn't particularly a good film. The house is full of drink but I just couldn't touch alcohol at all. Unbelievable I know, but true.

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