Monday May 8, 1978

It was good to see Dave and Co. yesterday. He's now growing a beard.

Jacq and I got a BUS to Leeds at 7:50. En route she suggests I have my hair permed in the style of one of the Arsenal (football) players. I am unsure. One has to be so careful with this sort of thing. I'd hate to look more effeminate than I do already. However, I've never really been one who worried about the impression I give to others. Joe Public can go get stuffed.

I must send a few letters this week. I have yet to let Helen down for May 19, and Joy, in far off Amsterdam, is awaiting a literary morsel from my genius pen. David too, in far off Gloucester, has been neglected and abused.

Saw 'Pete 'n Tillie', a film with Carole Burnett and Walter Matthau, on the telly tonight. Dave L and I saw it first at Yeadon in 1972, I'm sure.

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Sunday May 7, 1978

New Moon 05:47

Sunday after Ascension

Slept in the dining room after concocting a breakfast of cheese on toast with poached eggs and fish cakes for Jacq and I. It sounds quite revolting but we ate it like starving fiends. Lynn & Dave woke me at 9:30 and after a few coffees I was OK.

Weather ~ strangely dry. The sun put in an appearance. Mum and Dad went with Lynn & Dave to Burley. Jacq, Sue and I sat looking through old photograph albums. We howled with laughter at the one of me picking my nose ~ in Goldthorpe Park with my Uncle Albert.

Dave of Stockport, Billy Wright and Garry Barratt came her just before 12. With Jacq, Sue and Pete we went to the Commercial. It was good to see them. A quiet start but we ended up roaring with laughter. I don't think Jacq took to Bill at all.

At 2 we returned home for an impromptu afternoon party. Shortly afterwards Uncle Peter, Auntie Jean, Julie, Beverley and Penny came up the lane in a massive, American automobile (borrowed). It was unbelievable. Moore booze was consumed. In all the activity we hadn't noticed that Bev was drunk (aged 10). It embarrassed me greatly because I was 'Major Domo' on the bar. The poor kid. Uncle Peter, in typical form, merely laughed it off.

John, Maria and JPH came and stayed until midnight watching 'Ben Hur' on tv. A diabolical film, but it astounded Victorian audiences all over the world when it was first released in 1867.

Baby (JPH) is thin and tall and toddles at high speed, like a road runner. Mum, as usual, is besotted with the young fellow.

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Saturday May 6, 1978

Sun rises 05:24 Sun sets 20:31

Auntie Mabel phoned this morning to say that Uncle Jack's (Myers) days are numbered. Cousin Jackie had phoned her to say the family had been summoned to the hospital to be told nothing can be done to stop the cancer. Auntie Eleanor is going to sell her shop. The poor family must be in torment.

Jacq and I listened to records all day and Dave B took us in the Spitfire to the Hare at 8:30. The place was like Belsen, but without the rotting corpses. So deserted. From here we went to the Fox where Christine joined us at 9. After a short debate we moved to the Crown at Yeadon, which is packed with the cream of local society. The majority of ladies here are like Roman goddesses.

Philip Knowles, exceedingly drunk, invited us all to his girlfriend's party in Guiseley. She is Jane Sinclair, sister of the notorious _____. I was surprised when Christine expressed a wish to go. It didn't take me long to realise just how much she and P still think of one another. I think it would be great if they could be back together.

The party was back at Guiseley (on Victoria Road, above the fish and chip shop). Knocking back the booze and dancing to Rod Stewart LPs. Poor Jacq regurgitated much of tonight's alcoholic intake. She didn't pass out though, like some people. Poor Philip was one of the first to keel over.

I bumped into Lynne Sykes and we had a good long chat reminiscing about Benton (Park). One way or another it was just like old times and I didn't feel like a nerdish 23 year-old with one knee in the grave, which was refreshing. Christine was a sorry figure because she was hitting it off with Philip so well, and when he crashed out in his girlfriend's bed it left her stranded. She danced a good deal.

Home at 4:30 to a damned dawn chorus.

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Friday May 5, 1978

A wet day, again. I met Jacq at the Ostlers and I had a cheeseburger sandwich and consumed a moderate measure of ale. I intended buying a shirt for £10 but the shop only had the one on display and the nasty (shop) assistant was not prepared to take it from the window. It's probably a blessing because my finances are revoltingly low this week.

Tonight I met Jacq in the rain at 8:30 and we spent the evening at the Drop Inn. Christine and Mary came in for ten minutes at 10:30. We arranged to see Christine at the Fox tomorrow. _______________.

At 11pm we made our way homeward via Green Bottom fish and chip shop, and we sat playing records and drinking stout until a disgusting hour.

I really do think that Jacq should stop smoking. __________. Just think what her lungs will look like in a few years time if she continues this experiment of self-pollution. W.D. & H.O. Wills deserve to rot in Hell.




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Thursday May 4, 1978

Ascension Day ~ Holy Thursday

A wet, deluged day. At 4pm I was in the predicament of having no transport (at least until a train at 5:17) and so Sarah ferried me to the polling station at Hawksworth where I cast my vote for Willie Hudson, the current Lord Mayor. The rain will ensure that the Conservatives are re-elected (Council elections).

At 5 we went back to Sarah's where we had haddock flan for tea with Delia and Granny Ireson. Bill Collis was in residence but he said very little. We discussed Llandudno (of all places) and he advised me never to venture into Wales, adding with emphasis: 'it isn't worth it.'

It is incredible just how incompatible Delia, Bill, Sarah and family are together.They'd all kill one another without a minutes hesitation if it wasn't for the fact it's so convenient for them to carry on under the same roof. ________.

Delia remains at the top of my favourite 'Ladies Over 45' list. From this lofty height she will never fall.

I cancelled a dental appointment scheduled for this evening to sample a slice of Delia's 'nice piece of haddock' (bought in case you're interested at Cowley's fishmongers in Headingley).

At 8, Sarah, Delia, Mrs Whittington (yes, "Turn again, Dick" and all that)went to the pub in Wetherby where we had a riot last September after the 'do' at Harewood House.

Home, very sober, at 11 to find the whole house in uproarious, drunken revelry. The Nasons, Edith & Ernest, David B's Uncle Tony (Baker) from Nigeria, and a very drunken Lynn.

Bed at 4am after listening to records using the headphones.

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Wednesday May 3, 1978

You won't believe this but today we actually experienced sunshine. At one point during the afternoon I was to be seen winding my way on foot from Rawdon to my home ~ without the benefit of waterproof garments of any kind and with only a thin woollen pullover to protect me from the elements. It was indeed a Spring day.

On the BBC 6 o'clock news Kenneth Kendall told us that Princess Margaret is in hospital with gastroentiritis, but no further information is forthcoming. Mum, suspicious as ever, asks me if I know exactly what is really wrong with Princess Margaret. She never believes anything she reads in the Press. She even suggests that Mr Llewellyn's exile to Morocco has caused HRH to make an attempt on her own life! This is unlikely. Princess Margaret and the Earl of Snowdon 'celebrate' 18 years of marriage on Saturday. I do feel sorry for her and the hellish two or three years she's experienced and my advice to the royal lady is get off to North Africa and legalise things with Roddy and tell this feeble country of ours to stuff their £50,000 per annum. Frankly, we don't deserve you, Margaret.

This evening I cut all the lawns (with a lawn mower of course) and then watched the tv until it exploded. My volume of Pepys was upstairs and I was so lazy I couldn't be bothered to go upstairs and bring it down.

Lynn came in at about 9. She's ill again. The poor girl is forever plagued with sickness, tummy aches, constipation, &c, and the doctor seems unable to do anything about it. It worries Mum a good deal. I told Lynn to eat prunes but nobody ever listens to my advice. A great deal of profitable, useful and highly informed information of mine is currently floating around in the atmosphere. Given time I do suppose that some alien power will pick up my signals and make radio contact.

Retire to Pepys, bed and sanity at 12:35am.

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Tuesday May 2, 1978

Continuing torrential weather. Jacq and I went by train to Leeds arriving there at 8:10am. She went to the YWCA to slip into something befitting a Dacre, Son and Hartley employee. I astounded them all at the YP by my early presence.

The YP was dead. I scrounged a lift to Guiseley at 4 with Delia & Sarah.

More ghastly salad for tea and afterwards I phoned Stockport Dave to tell him I cannot afford to go over on Saturday, and he suggested coming to see me instead. ________________.

I didn't mention this at the time but last week Dave of Gloucester phoned to say he couldn't make it to Helen and Graham's on May 19. I am now going to have to contact Helen to decline the long standing invitation ~ yet again. They'll be taking it personally before very long. I was so looking forward to seeing them again. Jacq and I discuss going together to see the Malins, but the week after it is Trixie's 50th birthday party, and the fare to Peterborough we simply cannot manage.

Tonight watched a programme about the Great Train Robbery (1963) and then retired to bed at 11:30.

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