Tuesday September 8, 1981

 _. Three months married is an exciting time.  ______________.

YP: Did some background for Bob [Cockroft] and the People column. Lady Feversham gave birth to a son in York on Sunday, and Charles Forbes Adam, a grandson of a former YP chairman, is engaged. quite mundane really.

Spoke to Derek Jenkins [Ally was out of the office], and he didn't bother to tell her I'd phoned. Phoned Mum. They were at Hilda and Tony's last night and I was reminded the night of hideous drinking in celebration of the coming nuptials of Jill & Tim is almost upon us. May God see us safely through the ordeal. 

Greatest Aussie lady.

Saw Dame Edna [Everage] interviewed on Nationwide. Surely the greatest Australian lady of all time?

Michael Foot on the news making a heart-rending speech calling for party unity, and as usual he had to mention Aneurin Bevan. He always does. His oratory won't do a blind bit of good. Wedgwood Benn will take the leadership even if it takes him 20 years. I cannot wait for that to happen because who on earth would vote Labour with that buffoon in charge?

Mrs Thatcher has been at Balmoral. The prime minister goes every year in August for a weekend as the Queen's guest, but the word from the heather is that Mrs T is there to brief HM on her coming Cabinet changes. What rot. The re-shuffle might never come.

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Monday September 7, 1981

 _. Dull, overcast, hot. The Prince and Princess of Wales are grinning on the front pages of today's newspapers apparently giggling through the national anthem at the Braemar Games where the Queen told them to cool it. 

Phoned Ally. She's feeling peculiar __________. Later, she phoned Lynn to ask if they fancy going to Stranraer for John's birthday. The Bakers cannot decide. Auntie Joan, Bessie's sister, phoned saying we haven't received a wedding present and ought she to post it? This causes some feelings of guilt. We really should go to Colne. 

Ally is crossed legged on the floor reading Daphne Du Maurier's 'Jamaica Inn'. She says it's 'spooky'.

News: Alec Waugh, brother of Evelyn, is dead. Bed at 11. Ally had gone at 9:30.

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Sunday September 6, 1981

 _. 12th Sunday after Trinity

Up at 9:30. Ally brought tea and toast to bed. Afterwards I painted the hooks holding the picture frames on the bedroom wall. They were annoying me.

I sat reading Charles II [Antonia Fraser]. Ally cooked a massive lunch, brisket, cauliflower cheese, &c. Afterwards, before 4:30, we went to bed, in the glow of a pink lamp. Tony Blackburn on the radio, very annoying, and afterwards we watched, whilst still abed, a film about the widow of an assassinated U.S president marrying a Greek shipping billionaire and living happily ever after. Of course it couldn't ever happen in real life. Watched part one of a Churchill drama with Robert Hardy playing Winston and Sian Phillips as Clemmie. Quite good.

Mum phoned to ask how the wedding went. Auntie Delia phoned. I'll give you the details tomorrow.

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Saturday September 5, 1981

 _. Extremely hot. Ally went off to Catherine's at 10:30 and I made my way to St Cuthbert's Church at Heaton, at 11:30, and sat alone in the church. 

It was my first experience of a Roman Catholic wedding and Mass. Bridesmaid Ally looked like a peach, and I got a smile from her as she passed down the aisle following Miss Brook. Hard to believe she had been up most of the night supping with her in-laws. Roman Catholicism is so unwholesome. It looks fine in Turin or Castel Gandolfo, but seems a little out of place in Bradford. 

We prayed for Pope John Paul. I do not object to that - he's a likeable old stick. The Irish priest went on and on, but at about 1pm Ally [clutching her bouquet] and I were taken away in something like a Peugeot to Steeton and the Currergate Hotel. Hot there and no good really because Ally was on the top table and I was with a party of comedians. Occasionally I caught Ally's eye and we beamed. I was partnered with a Miss Binns, in a pretty blue frock, who, because of the heat, became faint, and escaped to the garden, leaving her turkey sitting on the table. Sweat poured off me. A vast 'wedding breakfast' consisted of asparagus soup, a fish in mushroom sauce, then roast turkey followed by a fruit salad.

The Curregate Hotel.

We had drinks in the garden afterwards and declined an invitation to an after party in Riddlesden, and came home at 6:30. Sue and Pete were there waiting for us. Sue is bigger, of course, but well. Peter was great fun. We went to the Reservoir pub on Daisy Hill, and then to fish and chip shop [for the Nasons, not for us], and then to Mucky Willies. Sue wants to call the baby Benjamin, but Peter doesn't approve. She is also fond of the name Paul, or Katie or Clare for a girl. We were home by 10pm. In two hours we had only managed 2 drinks.

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Friday September 4, 1981

Mum and Dad.

 _. Ally is just taking a photo of me as I write this, flat on the floor, fountain pen in hand. The film in the camera, she says, needs 'using up'. 

A peaceful day at the YP thanks to the absence of 'Mrs Slocombe', who has gone on a European tour with her boyfriend, the 58 year-old ex-president Jimmy Carter look-alike, Mike. Kathleen working 5pm-12. 

Home at 6. Mum and Dad came here at 8 and stayed until after 3am. A very successful meeting. Dad went over the road to the Corner shop and came back with a bottle of gin and orange juice. I carried up chilled bottles of lager from the cellar. Don Cortez wine, and some of Dad's home-made wine completed the damp repast. We had prawns to start, then lamb chops [for which I have a passion], and a big salad. Cheesecake afterwards. Mum hit the piano and played Debussy's Clair de Lune, and Ally amused us with a quaint old piece. We sank some booze. Mum told us tales from north of the border _______.JPH keeps breaking Alec Clanachan's windows, just for fun, and Maria isn't eating. John says 'she's smoking instead'. Maria's friend from the village, Denise, is now living in their caravan at Lochans. Dad fell asleep after 12 and the three of us sat until 3 nibbling at the cheese. After they left Ally went off to bed and I did the washing up until 5am.

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Thursday September 3, 1981

 _. Mum Phoned: Susan, she says, has been to hospital and has undergone a 'scan' which revealed she isn't as advanced as she thought, and baby Nason is no longer due on December 28, probably four weeks later. We haven't seen Mum and Dad for a couple of weeks. They're coming to dinner tomorrow.

Meanwhile, this evening we paid a visit to Morrison's. No matter how sparing we try to be we always put £10 worth of shopping into our basket.

Had fish and chips at Mother Hubbard's, the standard of which has greatly improved since our last visit to that Harry Ramsdens-look-alike. On then to the home of Catherine Brook, shortly to be Alderson. We took our wedding present [Habitat tins], meeting David [Alderson] on the way who was having a spot of bother with his wheel trims. We spent a couple of hours at the Brook residence and detected no signs of panic or chaos. They looked at our wedding pics and Mrs B's verdict was that Ally looks like a fashion model. At 10 Catherine and David took us to view the Alderson marital pile, a semi. I prefer little Club Street any day. Their neighbours are either Greek Cypriots or Chinese.

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Wednesday September 2, 1981

 _. Spoke to Mum from the YP. She's bright and cheerful again. She's having the three piece suite re-upholstered. A man is coming to take it away on Sept 18, and they go to Italy on Sept 20. The car has had a re-spray, and the kitchen is to be re-designed by David. This apparently in Plan B. Plan A was the Stonehouse Inn.

Home at 6. Omelettes and salad. Afterwards I was back to my painting, though I'm far from happy with a distant cottage, the colour won't come. Everything else of course is pure Stubbs. I insist that we frame my effort soon because a painting in a frame immediately becomes a good picture. How sad. 

Dave G phoned to ask Ally to ask Frank if he can give a job in Guernsey to a girl from the Robin Hood pub. Frank of course, is now regional director for Barclays in the Channel Islands.

Tonight we read and watched TV. Trevor Eve in 'Shoestring' a very unconvincing private detective, and then, before bed, half an hour of a shoddy Liz Taylor film from 1974.

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Tuesday September 1, 1981

 _. It's hideous getting out of bed. To the YP. Guess who phoned me at lunchtime? Yes, Christine Braithwaite, no less. She wanted some info from an advert in last Wednesday's EP.

I came home to a lovely surprise. Ally has bought me a canvas. I sat until 10 creating a landscape from a photograph. Bed early following the excesses of the weekend.

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Monday August 31, 1981

 _. Bank Holiday in UK [except Scotland]

I was ordered to the greenhouse to water the tomato plants whilst Bessie cast her expert eye over a knitting problem encountered by Ally. They're knitting baby clothes. Bessie chose some wedding photographs for her collection.

Bessie gave lunch for us and Graham and Gill. Salmon, lamb, and chocolate gateau. We left for home at 5:30. Back to Club Street at 10:45. Watched an hour of The Omen, starring Gregory Peck. To bed. Exhausted.

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Sunday August 30, 1981

 _. 11th Sunday after Trinity

Up at about 10. We were denied the usual vast breakfast because were were going out to lunch. A great debate on the location took place first. Joined by Graham and Gill and Andrew [clad in his leatherwear, astride his gleaming machine] and off we went to the Plough at Sparsholt. Spent a couple of hours in the beer garden. A plastic ploughman's lunch, beer and gin. Graham is a delightful 'show off', and has been encouraged in this attitude for his whole life by his father. Bessie was drinking gin, and had the giggles.

Ally at Avington.

Back at the house Frank disappeared into his study with a bottle of paint stripper and we didn't see him again. Ally says her father finds relaxation a bore.

Ally and I went for a walk in the grounds of Avington House, in the village, and drifted inside to be given a guided tour around the impoverished mansion by the owner, a Colonel Hickson, who has been there since 1953. He's a bluff old boy trying desperately to keep the place afloat. It's a fine 17th century pile built by the Duke of Chandos, and, according to the colonel, Charles II and Nell Gwynn stayed there.

Afterwards we went looking for blackberries, and whilst midst the brambles Ally suggested going to dinner at Salisbury. Such a good idea. Off we went to the County Hotel [a Berni Inn] for a rump steak. A group of very noisy Americans were at the next table. Salisbury Cathedral, floodlit, is one of the finest ecclesiastical erections I have ever encountered.

Back to the Plough, Itchen Abbas, at 9:45 to join Graham, Gill, her brother, Peter Lynn, and his heavily pregnant wife, who are moving to Ayr on Monday, or Wednesday.

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Saturday August 29, 1981

 _. After breakfast we took off in the Triumph Dolomite, at speed, with Bessie to Southampton. We went to Habitat to buy Jill and Tim a decanter and glasses, and some tin boxes for Catherine and David. We went to Woolworths for some wire and then back to Martyr Worthy for 1:30. 

Chilland Barn.

Graham and Gill took us to the Cricketer's at Easton, full of flies, but had an excellent lunch. Ploughman's lunch with Stilton. 

After lunch Ally and I went to Alfresford and bought an old photo, an Edwardian lady, in a frame. She's called Phyllis.

Later, at 6:30 Frank and Bessie took us across the road to Chilland Barn, the beautiful home of Freddie and Avril Hargreaves. They are Welsh and he has made his millions as accountant to the Julian Hodge empire. They were very friendly. I came away with feelings of envy, which I do not like.

To Southampton with Graham and Gill at 10 to Lalupa's for a moderate pizza. Back to Graham and Gill's at Chandler's Ford for whisky.

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