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| Bassey: Goldfinger. |
Home at 6. Spent two hours preparing dinner with Ally. Jill and Tim, the honeymooners, came to dine at 8. Homemade mushroom soup, grilled steak with chips, peas, corn, leek, fried mushrooms, cheesecake, chocolate cake, cream. Lutomer Riesling. They are a marvellous couple, and highly suited, and so 'easy going'.
Bed at 1am. Mum and Dad are at Cavaillon.
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_. I don't like Mondays. It was a hardship saying goodbye to Ally. Is this the way our life is going to be until I'm 65? Working or sleeping?
Gloom at the YP. Sarah had a face like a wet weekend. 'Mrs Slocombe' has returned from her Geneva sojourn with the ex-President Jimmy Carter look-alike. Mrs S looks very pale and I suspect she will have indentations from bed springs deep into her back.
Home at 6. Pork chops. Kitten was a hive of industry tonight. Washing, ironing, bed changing.
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| Foot: crutches |
Mum and Dad are at Rully, in the Saône-et-Loire, tonight. Lucky buggers. Bed at 11 after a Michael Caine epic. Ally was collapsed over a Agatha Christie.
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_. 14th Sunday after Trinity
We said goodbye to Mum and Dad at about 9pm last night. They left for the continent at 7am, staying tonight at Dunkirk. It all shrieks of the Second World War and not a holiday.
We slept until about 11 and had a long, leisurely luncheon. Roast beef, flat Yorkshire puds, &c.
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| Hardy as Churchill. |
Did nothing but watch TV and listen to the radio. I cannot decide whether I like the latest Churchill drama. It's hard to imagine Winnie and Clem tucked up in bed together. They are too recent. It's perhaps easier to see Queen Anne in bed, or the Duke of Wellington or Lord Kitchener [who according to Lady Diana Cooper, liked to be flogged by boys], but not Winston.
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_. Sunny and blustery. Was splashing in the bath at 8:30. We were ready for 11. Ally, quite stunning, in her tulip dress. We had a photo shoot in the garden. The neighbours, behind their nets, envious of our high social life. Our comings and goings have brought a touch of Edwardian splendour to this quiet Lidget Green enclave.
Met Mum, Dad, Sue & Pete at noon in the Farmers Arms, Thornbury, and went on to Pudsey Parish Church at 12:45, overtaking Uncle Tony and the bride in their stately Rolls Royce on the way. Wedding was at 1. The vicar, obviously going for the world record, had them married by 1:15 and out onto the lawn for a lengthy photographic session with a fat fellow in a demob suit. In church Tim shook throughout, slightly more worried about the rupture in the Elmer family and where it might lead, than his performance before the vicar. Auntie Mabel wailed throughout. It was perhaps the hymn 'O Perfect Love' that did it.
The receeption was held at Pudsey Civic Hall. Baby Frances took a lot of the attention. She is perhaps one of the finest babies I have seen. I know the current baby is always the finest, but she is a wonder.
Back to Wilsby at 5. No punch ups. Back to the Civic Hall at 7:30, in pouring rain, for a party until midnight. A vast and merry throng too numerous to mention. Joined by Dave L. We sat with Lynn and Dave but I cannot recall any of the conversation. You know how I forget things after a long day with heavy spirits. Home wet at 12. We were invited back to Wilsby but thought the better of it.
[Photographs to accompany the entry to follow]
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Ally it seems, always comes out of these debauched evenings with apparently no ill effect. I put it down to her youth.
We went to Pine Tops at 3 and found Mum and Dad reclining in deckchairs in the sitting room because of the lack of furniture. No, it isn't because the bailiffs have been, or anything like that. The three piece suite is being reupholstered. The settee is rare. It's a five seater.
We went to Menston to collect my morning suit from Charles the Tailor, then to Morrison's, and finally to Harry Ramsden's for fish and chips. We went back to Pine Tops until 9:30 watching the Leeds Triennial Piano competition. A frightened German youth gave a marvellous job of Rachmaninov's 2nd piano concerto. Always a moving piece. Mum and Dad are like young lovers.
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_. Pay day. I received a tax rebate, at long last. £68.70. Went out at lunchtime feeling like a millionaire. Bought a 'Haddon Hall' tea saucer for our set, and Agatha Christie's 'Murder at the Vicarage'. Ally is obsessed by the super-sleuth, Hercule [Poirot], and is ceaseless in her reading.
Dismal at the YP. 'Mrs Slocombe' is still in Gstaad with 'Jimmy Carter'. Sarah went off to a Yorkshire Post Literary lunch where the guest speaker is Topol, of all people. Kathleen, still not smoking, was in a foul mood. She went on and on pulling Bradford to pieces. OK, it aint Naples or Venice, but is it on a lower level than Leeds?
I am told that Lord Boyle of Handsworth is dying and so I spent some time putting his file in order. The poor man's been eaten away by cancer, but he has kept going.
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| King Arms, Tong. |
To Pudsey at 7:30 to the King's Arms at Tong with Jill, Tim, Karen, Steve, Diane, Paul, Hilda [drinking pints], Tony, Geoff Elmer, Margaret, Eugene, Tracy, &c. A drunken evening. I was drinking pils lager. Back at 11 to the Sanderson pile for a couple of hours. They all had a curry [of which Ally partook], and I found myself smoking.
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_. I could now be watching a party political broadcast by the Labour party, but I'm not. I have left the room.
News: The Liberal party have formed an alliance with the SDP. So, it looks like Roy Jenkins will be prime minister in 1984. I don not think Mrs Thatcher will rellish a united opposition, when the present official opposition under Mr Foot is such an easy push over.
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| Lichfield: best dressed. |
Phoned Ally. She says he senile Welsh boss 'smells of human excretia', and has had an accident in his Welsh underpants.
Phoned Mum. her hair, she says, is now curly.
The girls in the office today are morose. Sarah is low. Her dullness is due to the rising mortgage rate. Kathleen, unsmiling, was sucking on 'Victory Vs'.
Home at 6. Chicken soup and sandwiches. Dave G phoned at 8:30. He informs me that Billy recently visited Soho, and the delights of a sauna. Oh dear.
We made a lasagne for tomorrow, and read.
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| Len Murray: in rags |
My father-in-law's 54th birthday. We posted a card with a cheque for £5, but otherwise didn't hear from Chillandham Cross.
We had an enormous dinner. Meat, mounds of dumplings, cauiflower cheese, Uncle Tony's home-grown beans. No wonder I'm stacking on the weight.
Phoned Susie to talk about Thursday but she was far from enthusiastic. She tires so easily and is in bed by 9:30. She's been out with Peter and Jim to buy a pram.
Ovaltine and Charles II. Bed at 10:30.
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_. Boiled eggs. To the YP.
News: The prime minister has sacked the Cabinet 'wets'. [James] Prior goes to Northern Ireland as secretary of state where I suppose Mrs T hopes he'll be bombed. Sir Ian Gilmour returns to the 'back benches' as does Mark Carlisle. Lord Soames is out and Lord Thorneycroft has been put out to retirement. [Norman] Tebbit is now Employment secretary, and a lady, Baroness Young, becomes Leader of the House of Lords. Is this a first?
The horrid boy who fired blank shots at the Queen in June has been jailed for 5 years. Khalid Aziz has been sacked from 'Nationwide'.
Phoned John and Maria to confirm our visit to Lochans on Sept 25. Phoned Lynn, and then Sue, but it was much too late to speak to her. She's always in bed at 9.
We had left over roast chicken and salad and polished off the Riesling. Alison to bed with Agatha Christie. She's book mad.
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_. 13th Sunday after Trinity
We had a restless night. Ally wasn't comfortable. We were up at 8:30.
Phoned Lynn. Frances is to be christened on October 4 at Burley. The vicar has requested that all godparents should preferably be confirmed. None of us are. She says Chris Ratcliffe is going to Scotland on Sept 25, and thinks we shouldn't go. I say we should, and will phone Maria tomorrow. Mum is having Sue & Pete for lunch.
Ally made scrambled eggs and then put a chicken in the pot. She is bursting with activity.
We drove to Pudsey at 2. Wilsby was deserted and so was Jill's at Valley Rd, so we phoned Mum to be told the Gadsbys were at at Pudsey St Lawrence Cricket Club's Donkey Derby. A village affair. We went along an I won £2.50 on a donkey. We sat on the damp lawn and had ice cream. Karen, Steve, Jill, Tim, Diane, Paul, and Marlene and the children. Then back to Wilsby until 9. By 9:30 were were at home. I was pissed. Had roast chicken washed down with Riesling. Watched Robert Hardy as Churchill, then plunged into a bath. Bed at 12.
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| Harrogate: 1981 |
In York we went into the wrong pub, which was rough, and had cold steak and kidney pie, and vowed never to eat out in York again. We have yet to find a decent pub in the centre of York. The locals were alien and looked to be part of the criminal fraternity. Pagan in fact. Heavy tattoos, &c. And even the women looked like rugby prop forwards. Ally, bless her, asked if the large building dominating the city was the 'cathedral'. I just gave her a black look.
On to Leeds and the shops. Bought nothing. Home with aching feet. Out at 7 to a run-down wine bar and then Pizzeria Mama Mia's on Manningham Lane for scampi and lasagne. Ally had a corn on the cob which oozed over her frock. Home at 9:30.
Dame Edna on the telly. Hilarious. A good day.
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A warm, gentle day. Ally and I took off to town with Samuel at 1pm. We didn't take the pram and I carried baby for two hours, by the end...
