Friday April 24, 1981

 _. Snow fell over night throwing everything into chaos. Sat giggling with Ally at breakfast watching the snow swirling across the Bradford landscape. One wouldn't believe it's May next week. To the YP. Phoned Mummy. She expressed surprise that I wouldn't be going home tonight, but I do want to spend the weekend at Club St. Women! Only days ago I was treating home like a hotel.

I escaped the office at 4 to battle on to Bradford on a smoke-filled omnibus. Didn't get to Club St until after 6. Had a huge dinner, steak and kidney with dumplings. A romantic evening looking out at the falling snow. Snuggled down watching our tiny, black and white, and illegal tv. 

News: Sick of hearing about the IRA hunger striking MP Bobby Sands. _________.

-=-

Thursday April 23, 1981

 _. St George's Day

Harry, England and St George, and all that. Spent an hour in Leeds Market looking for suitable pork chops and new potatoes. I approached a little red faced woman on a veg stall and asked for some spuds. 'What quantity?' Floundering, I came away with 2lb. 

Whilst Lord Cambridge was being planted at Frogmore at 2:30 Princess Michael of Kent was giving birth to a daughter at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington. What we have lost in the Cambridges we have gained in the Kents. No names for the latest Windsor have been announced as yet, but Marina is bound to feature in there, and your Elizabeths, Victorias, Alexandras and Dianas are inevitable.

To Lidget Green at 5:30. Dined with darling Ally. Dave G phoned. He wants us to accompany him and the lads to Steak Kebabs on May 2, but I say this is out of the question.

Mum phoned. Our wedding invitations have arrived at Rhodeses stationers.

-=-

Wednesday April 22, 1981

 _. Mum took one of her monthly swings at me which I took with my usual bluffness  and ill-humour. She objected to the way Ally and I had 'moved into' Pine Tops for the Easter weekend and had treated the place 'like a hotel'. How on earth can you treat your own home like a hotel? I sat brooding in front of the TV. The David Lloyd George series has improved with age.

I took to my bed with Burke's Peerage. Frances was a very popular name until the early years of this century and was abundant in the 17th and 18th centuries, but has since given way to Eileen, Brenda and Yvonne. 

-=-

Tuesday April 21, 1981

 _. Miserable day really. I can do nothing right. Dad did nothing but complain about the painting I did in his absence yesterday. I am very annoyed at his attitude. In future he can get on with his bloody work alone. The man is fastidious to the point of insanity.

Back to the YP after my Easter break. Kathleen, in her lengthy absence from us has been thinking up ways to destroy our perfectly good filing system. All the numers relating to files are to go, and we are going all alphabetical, she has announced. In other words Princess Anne will come before apples, and muscular dystrophy will come before music. I've worked with the numbered system for eight years, but now Divorce [2192], Iran [187], Greece [682], Sex[4768], Spiritualism [1063], Sheep [1E], Films [516], the Conservative Government [937H], and such, are to go.

Today is the fifty-fifth anniversary of the birth of Her Majesty the Queen, who is celebrating quietly at Windsor Castle. The Marquess of Cambridge, 85, a cousin of Her Majesty, died last Thursday without a male heir. It is my belief that one day HM will bestow the dukedom of Cambridge upon Prince Edward, a title long associated with the Royal Family over hundreds of years, and cousin George's demise makes this all the more real. Speculation is also growing in the Press that the Prince of Wales is to become the Governor General of Australia after his marriage. I think not. It would never do for Charles to become bogged down in colonial politics, and it wouldn't be right for Lady Diana to bring up a family 'down under'. The future cherubic Wales babies will require Gloucestershire air.

-=-

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.

-=-

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.

-=-

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.  

-=-

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.

-=-

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.

-=-

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.

-=-

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.

-=