Saturday May 2, 1981

 _. Despite what I said earlier in the week I gave in and spent the day on a ladder painting the house white. Life went on quite normally beneath me. JPH is making a big impact. Maria came and then went [she seems to be obsessed with Otley]. John spent the day under his car on the drive, and was joined by Jimmy Macdonald, and his wife, Karim. Ally occupied herself with Mum and Catherine. My little niece calls me 'Mikey' or 'Micah'. Finished daubing paint at 6:30.

Ally and I went to Burley-in-W to 'baby sit' for Frances whilst Lynn and Dave went to join Sue and Pete at the White Cross. The baby decided she wanted to feed in the middle of 'Dallas', and so the US saga had to wait while Ally found a bottle. Lynn phoned twice from the pub and came back feeling guilty at abandoning her daughter.

Home to Pine Tops after 12.

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Friday May 1, 1981

 _. May Day, for what it's worth.

Uneventful at the YP. Carol J's birthday passed once again into the annals of history. She has become quite impossible in recent times. We cannot take much more. 

To Guiseley for 6. Mum and Dad went to Pudsey. Ally came here. John was here too, covered in oil underneath his ailing Ford Escort 1300, on the drive. Good to see him. JPH was next door visiting his friend Richard, and no doubt organising things.

Tea time was a bit of a circus. Dave B called in with some plans of the Stonehouse Inn and surrounding land. He was downcast. The seven acres, he says, are worthless. We had sausages, eggs and chips with John, still covered in engine oil, and JPH prodded an egg, ate half a chip, and demanded we release him to go play with Richard. John made no attempt to make the lad eat, and so I gave him his liberty. JPH reminds me so much of his father at a similar age. He attracts dirt like a magnet and is the epitome of the naughty child portrayed in childrens story books.

Ally and I spent the evening watching tv. Mum and Dad returned from Pudsey at 9:30.

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Thursday April 30, 1981

 _. Went shopping to Safeways. Carried bags of goodies onto the bus for the journey to Bradford. To Club St for 6pm. Ally waiting hungrily for my arrival. We had a curry with rice [not hot enough] but pleasant all the same. Afterwards we sat reading 'The Further Letters of Henry Root', another hilarious volume of his letters to the rich and famous illustrating just how easy it is to fool people. Not many years ago such a book would not have been tolerated. We ignored the dull tv. 'Top of the Pops' is becoming more hideous. Just who does Jimmy Savile think he is, anyway?

Spoke to Mummy. She and Dad are going to see Marlene tomorrow. Bed at 12.

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Wednesday April 29, 1981

 _. Sunny with the odd shower. Cousin Jill's 19th birthday. Went to the office wearing a tie and gave some of the members of staff heart failure. Shazzo says I'm projecting a 'futurist' image, whatever that means. 

Ally's food supplies are virtually gone. She has eggs and mushy peas in her cupboard. She has despatched a shopping list in the post for me to spend my pay on the likes of washing up liquid and toilet rolls.

Auntie Mabel phoned Mum. __________. 

The Ripper trial opened, and was adjourned until Tuesday.

Jean Rook, in her newspaper column over two days has been interviewing Lord and Lady Spencer in an attempt to throw light on reports that they are cashing in on the forthcoming Royal wedding. Both made it clear that they are not doing this and are very upset at the rumours. Gossip of this nature is going to spoil things for the family on July 29, and the Prince of Wales and Lady Diana will have no happy start to married life if the press are going to pursue the character assassination of family members.

A report in the Sun suggests that Lady Diana's wedding dress might be pink. Bollocks.

Lord Cambridge died last week, and now Prince Philip's sister Princess Margarita of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, has died in Germany, aged 76. She was the eldest child of Prince Andrew of Greece and his wife Princess Alice.

This evening Dad and I painted the garage, and then adjourned to watch the Lloyd George drama. Philip Madoc is excellent in the part.

Bed at 12:50.

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Tuesday April 28, 1981

 _. We are like nervous wrecks waiting for something to happen about the Stonehouse Inn. The valuers are now on the case and George has sent for his accounts from Skipton, or Berkshire. Some background: the pub is at Thruscross [from the Danish word Thorscross] on the outskirts of the sunken village of West End [which is beneath Thruscross Reservoir]. The pub was built in the 1790s as a farm, but an adventurous farmer and home brewer did such great things selling his ginger beer that it soon became a public house. For 54 years from circa 1868 one Jesse Peel was the landlord/owner, and he was succeeded by his daughter. George Deacon bought the place in 1947. The Stonehouse is the last of five pubs that were in the Washburn Valley, all the others are now submerged beneath the reservoir. The Gate was the last to go in 1964. I only hope and pray that they manage to get this place. It will suit them down to the ground.

Wrote to Ally and phoned. She is busily knitting. Cousin Tricia is her current victim, or rather her baby is. I phoned her again when Mum and Dad went to see Sue and Pete.

I went to bed with Robinson Crusoe. I get the impression that he and Man Friday were on the peculiar side.

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Monday April 27, 1981

 _.Sun came and melted the snow. Britian is now knee deep in rotting, dead lambs, all caught unaware in the snow surprise of the weekend. We are also swimming in something else. I'm talking about canine excretia. Alighting from my bus this evening I proceeded to skid and slide, like a male version of Robin Cousins, in the numerous dog turds evenly spread over my homeward route. Britain is indeed in decline. The BBC 9 o'clock news failed to mention that Princess Michael of Kent had left hopsital with her newly named daughter. Kenneth Kendall went on and on about Bobby Sands [and the battle for his 'Slimmer of the Year' title], and Ringo Starr getting married, and listing endless boring Scottish League football results, but not one mention of the royal infant. She's been named Gabriella Marina Alexandra Ophelia Windsor. Gabriella is a good European RC name, and one of the baby's Austrian ancestors. Marina is for her grandmother the late Duchess of Kent. Alexandra for her aunt Mrs Ogilvy. Ophelia for the character in Hamlet who went bonkers and drowned herself bedecked in garlands. The baby was of course born on Shakespeare's birthday. We are told, in the press and not of course by the BBC, that the Lady Gabriella, eighteenth in line of succession to the throne, is to be known as 'Ella'. I'm unhappy with this. Sounds very un-English and calls to mind the wobbly, and collapsed 'Ruritarian' thrones of Europe.

The YP was a drag. Spoke to Ally. She had been in Bradford looking at baby clothes. Phoned her at 8:30 and our chat ended on a note of discord on the subject of money. Why is money the cause of all our problems? Why do I ask such stupid questions? Appropriately enough, the Monday film on the telly is 'For a Few Dollars More' - Clint Eastwood again.

Mum and Dad had been to the bank, and to the valuers, Oliver, Kitchen & Flynn, who are visiting the Stonehouse this week. At £75,000 I cannot see any difficulties. 

To bed at 12.

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Sunday April 26, 1981

 _. Low Sunday

I eventually went outside and shifted a bit of snow just to let the neighbours know we aren't taking Alaskan citizenship. Ate beans and eggs and things for breakfast, and tolerate Sir Jimmy Savile, KG, OBE, on the radio. [No doubt he'll soon be Lord Savile of Stoke Mandeville]. 

Ally made herself beautiful - a rhapsody in blue no less, and at 3:30 we climbed into her coughing little French car, and onward to Guiseley. Snow has devastated the Pine Tops garden. Like a Mount St Helen's eruption. Conifers flattened, daffs squashed, &c.

Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Mum and Dad went with David B at 7 to the Stonehouse Inn, where a deal was made. George is selling the inn for £75,000 and it's now down to Mum and Dad to come up with the cash. Valuers and bankers on the case. Ally and I, laden with sherry, went on to Burley and sat holding the baby for a couple of hours. Home at 11. Pub talk. Too exciting. 

Ally leapt into my bed. I've been reading Robinson Crusoe.

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Saturday April 25, 1981

 _. Club Street has disappeared beneath a white blanket of snow which persists throughout the day. We ventured outside and walked down the middle of the road [the paths being too heaped with snow] to Morrison's to buy minced beef and other vital provisions. Ally looked a belter in her blue wellies. All was well until a large, fat rat emerged from a snowdrift and ran across our path. Ally took off like Mary Peters at the 1972 Olympics. Back at Club Street for 3:15. Ally made one of her delicious lasagnes. It is a dish that I'm sure would convince any IRA hunger striker to change his mind. Ally and her Prestige Crock-pot could be the saviour of Anglo-Irish relations.

A marathon tv session with a box of Mr Kipling's French Fancies. Randolph Scott in two westerns, Dennis Weaver in a Hawaiian-themed thriller. Shelley Winters in a ludicrous 'black magic' type thriller, and then a Hammer Dracula epic.

-=-

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. _________.

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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.

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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. 

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