Monday April 20, 1981

 _. Bank Holiday in the UK [Except Scotland] & Canada

Mum and Dad went off with John at 8:30am to Penrith to tow his car back. I spent the day up a ladder painting the house. Got more paint on myself than the walls. Ally cleaned her car.

Mum, Dad and John came home at 6:30 and Dad wasn't happy with my painting. Bloody charming. Later, watched [for the eighteenth time] 'Where Eagles Dare'. They show this film every Bank Holiday, and every time they think Richard Burton is about to die. Buggered.

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Sunday April 19, 1981

 _. Easter Day. Full Moon

Crippled with a hangover. I switched onto the BBC and watched the Pope's 'Urbi et Orbi' address, in no fewer than forty nine languages, and felt much better afterwards.

Mum made a spectacular buffet. All the family gathered. Catherine calls her brother 'the boy'. Lynn and David brought baby Frances, and Maria held her for hours. Sue and Pete came very late. Pete was somewhat reminiscent of a dummy in Madame Tussaud's. 

The party was over by 6 and Ally and I stayed with Mum and Dad and we watched 'Murder on the Orient Express' from the book by Agatha Christie. I like the book, but the film is dull. Retired at 12.

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Saturday April 18, 1981

 _. Up at 8 and out helping Papa who is painting the house white. He began this ridiculous task yesterday. John and JPH came to breakfast, and Maria followed later with Catherine. Both children looked excellent and although Catherine will be 2 in June she still cannot walk unaided. John found a boiler suit and took up a paint brush to help. It was warm enough for Ally, Mum and Maria to sit on the lawn in deckchairs.

In the afternoon I took an hour off and went with Ally to pay Denise the remainder of our Ios money. Gulp.

Painting continued until after 6. We ate prawn sandwiches with the others. Karen, Steve, Jill and Tim came at 8 and we went to Dave L's 'Christmas' party at Tennyson Street. A successful party, and good turn-out, with far more attending that our miserable nine guests at Christmas. We danced until our legs ached. Hazel O'Connor was perhaps the most played record. John came minus Maria, who was too tired. He consumed vast quantities of whisky. Ally squealed with excitement at the arrival of Jacq and Paul [on a motor bike]. Teachers from Dave's school came in abundance. I sneezed a good deal thanks to the presence of Rowan, the Gordon Setter. The Dibbs came, as did Ian Appleyard, who expects his second child on or around April 27. Joan Lawson, Dave's Mum, wanted to play Debussy's 'Clair de Lune' on the organ, but was out-voted. Shame. Home at 2:30, pissed.  

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Friday April 17, 1981

 _. Good Friday

We had coffee in bed with Cadbury's Creme Eggs.

Spent the day industriously at Club St. Brewing ale, digging amongst the daffodils, cleaning out the cellar, gathering litter. Sunny and warm throughout.

We went over to Guiseley at 6. Mother was in a foul temper. She did improve later. John phoned to say his car has broken down in Penrith and that Jim Macdonald, Snr, had gone to collect them.

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Thursday April 16, 1981

 _. Bought steak at Atkinson's in readiness for tonight's dinner for Mr David Lawson. He is coming primarily to borrow records for his annual Christmas party, taking place this year on Easter Saturday.

Royal News: Roddy Llewellyn has, supposedly with the blessing of Princess Margaret, become engaged to a wealthy travel writer called Tatiana Soskin. I am glad about this because the Llewellyns are a hideous band of renegades, degenerates and bounders. 

Escaped from the YP at 4pm and arrived at Club St before Ally and sat on the wall. The neighbours, who all appear to be elderly spinsters, smile and wave at me. Ally has recently informed some of them about her coming nuptials, and you know how old ladies like a wedding. I could almost taste the excitement in the thick, Bradford air. 

Dave L came at 6:30 and we dined on grilled steak, baked potatoes and salad. A very enjoyable dinner. Dave amused us with tales of modern comprehensive school life. Afterwards we sat in a heap by the fire, and he left at about 9. We settled down in an ancient chair, the one with the Chintz wild roses and gladioli covers.

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Wednesday April 15, 1981

 _. I decided to go to Bradford after tea and gathered up a mass of records and chased a bus down Bradford Rd. Ally met me on Manningham Lane, and took me on to our home. Spent the evening in comical discussion on the subject of our finances, or lack of them. I refuse to worry about money. Why fret over scraps of coloured paper with pictures of dead nineteenth century nurses peering up from them? No, I'm sure all will be well in the end. Anyway, prisons are quite comfortable places these days.

We ate toast and drank tea and watched TV. Happy and domesticated. I wish it could be June now. 

I took down my family tree to add the baby and found another Frances. My great-great grandmother was Frances Proctor. She married Edward Fawbert, and was mother to Rella [my great-grandmother], who was born in June, 1855.

To bed in the region of midnight.

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Tuesday April 14, 1981

Frances Anne.

 _. Baby Frances made her first visit to see Granny and Grandad Rhodes at Pine Tops this evening. I sat nursing baby watching Barry Norman's film profile of Marilyn Monroe on BBC2. Baby looks much nicer. Nicer than Marilyn Monroe that is, not Barry Norman. Ally arrived looking pale and complaining of pains. ____. All eyes were firmly fixed on the baby and even the return to earth of the Space Shuttle paled into insignificance by comparison. I wasn't even aware that it had gone up, and so was mildly surprised to see it plummeting back over Colorado. Until we can walk on the floor of the Pacific, cure cancer, and live healthily until we're 300, what's the point of going into Space? Small minded of me, I bet you're saying, but expect more ridiculous observations in future.

The Bakers went home reasonably early to feed Frances and we all went into the usual raptures - baby raptures.

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Monday April 13, 1981

 _.Giggling with Ally on the phone this afternoon. I told her the only food to have passed my lips all day was one Nuttall's mint. I was chastised. One boiled sweet is hardly adequate for a growing boy. She phoned me this evening saying she has eaten some mushrooms which had probably 'gone off'. I worry, and advised arrowroot in warm milk. She went to bed early with a batch of my letters for a reappraisal. 

At home, mowed the lawns. Watched Coronation Street. Later, watched Clint Eastwood in A Fistful of Dollars.

Dave G phoned for a bulletin on Lynn and the baby. Dave L phoned but I was in the bath, and I asked Mum to ask him to change his coming visit to Club St from Wednesday to Thursday. He agrees. He stands a much better chance of getting a decent meal on Thursday. 

Mum and Dad were like love-birds tonight and seemed to be incredibly happy about something. They visited the Stonehouse Inn on Friday evening and found old George sitting in his fireside chair, with cat on his lap, looking healthy again. His daughter, from the south, says that Blubberhouses is the most boring place on earth. OK, it's no Juan les Pins, but it'll do.

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Sunday April 12, 1981

 _. Palm Sunday

Up at 12. We ate sparingly. We made ourselves look decent in time to go to Lynn & Dave's at 2. She brought Frances home from hospital at 12, and a family gathering erupted around this historic event. The baby changes daily, and was surrounded by flowers and cards. Ally remained 'peaky' throughout the visit but didn't show any outward signs of her discomfort. Baby Frances was a brilliant antedote.

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Saturday April 11, 1981

 _. Ally came to lunch. At 7 we went to see the Rev Calvin Ward at Esholt. He says he is going to begin reading the banns soon, but first we have to visit the vicar of St Wildred's, Lidget Green, a Mr Nobbs [?], who will read the banns likewise in his colourful parish. Ward gave us a book, or perhaps manual, on marriage guidance, written by Margaret Hook, the wife of a former Bishop of Bradford. This gave us a few belly laughs on our drive back to Lidget Green.

Ally dresses, in a pastiche of pink, looking gorgeous and almost edible. At 10 we joined the still-proud David B, Karen, Steve, and Dave L at the Railway pub at Rodley. We passed Jacq and Paul in the doorway as they headed to the party, and we joined them at 11. Karen and Steve left as soon was decently possible, and Ally, Dave L and I stood propping up the kitchen sink. We discussed Bessie and Frank. Ally's parents were engaged for 10 years before they committed matrimony when she was 30 and he was 25. The mind boggles. ______. Dave B left before midnight, looking exhausted, but we remained clinging to the kitchen sink. Paul shouts and balls as though he's on stage at the National Theatre. ________.

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Friday April 10, 1981

 _.Up late feeling atrocious. I cannot take my drink at all these days, or so it would seem. Four pints of lager and I'm knackered for the day. Left Ally at 8 and missed the bus to Leeds and so I went by train instead. The only other occupant of my compartment was a drab looking, tweedy spinster, hiding behind a book 'Rediscovering God'.

I staggered along Wellington St and reached the office 10 minutes late. Grotty day. Buggered. Sarah took my lethargy for a developing cold and so avoided me for the day.

Home at 6. No sign of Mum and Dad. They visited Lynn and Frances this afternoon and I guess they went on to the Stonehouse Inn afterwards. Ally came at 7:30 and we cuddled in the dining room listening to Annie Nightingale on the radio. At about 9 I made eggs and chips and we sat with the plates on our knees watching TV and swilling gallons of tea. Mum and Dad came in later and Ally went home [a funny thing to do on a Friday] but she wants to do her washing in the morning, and an early start is vital.

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