Friday September 25, 1981

 _. Lord Cornwallis is not dead. He was prematurely reported to have died. A Daily Telegraph error. Heads will be rolling on Fleet Street.

Home at 1 to find Ally, clad in blue. We squabbled. On to Burley at 2, and half an hour later we were in Dave's speedy vehicle heading for Scotland. Ally and I had custody of Frances in the back seat. She's incredible with little fat, brown legs. The replica of a Giles cartoon, all cheeks and flared nostrils.

Towns flashed by. Kirkby Lonsdale, Gretna, Annan, Dumfries, Carrutherstown, Gatehouse of Fleet, &c. It was fine to begin with but the rain set in as we went further north. Arrived at Corner House Cottage, Lochans, at 7. John has done a spectacular job. The birthday boy is also the proud possessor of a Billy Goat called Sandy, and he's living in great comfort. Maria is smoking more, eating less. JPH loves limericks, the majority very rude. He was caught attempting to insert a cocktail stick into baby Frances's ear, apparently to remove the excess ear wax.

Corner House Cottage.

We left Lynn, Dave and Frances and went out with John and Maria to loud and largely empty disco. Some of the girls were in corduroy trousers, shirts and ties, all looking a bit Vita Sackville-West, if you ask me. Lesbians always carry large handbags. Have you noticed? Then, I went for a pee only to find two boys in a somewhat indelicate state of dress, pounding away in one of the cubicles. Blimey, Soddom and Gomorrah.

Home at 12:30. Maria decided to drive without car lights. We sat screaming as the vehicle traversed the dark, country lanes. Sat with Lynn and Dave listening to a Buddy Holly LP.

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Thursday September 24, 1981

 _. Pay day. See in the Daily Telegraph that Lord Cornwallis is dead. He was president of the MCC for many years.

Home at and spent a couple of hours stuffing clothes into bags and stripping the house of vital provisions required for our Scottish jaunt. We went to the supermarket for some last minute things and bumped into Graham Wiles, the EP reporter, rummaging through the packs of frozen lasagne.

Ally ironing [again]. Watched 'Fanny By Gaslight' a new series. We have had a postcard from Graham & Charlotte Smith, in Luxor, Egypt.

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Wednesday September 23, 1981

 _. Felt exhausted all day. I must be growing old.

At the YP, Sat reading the dull morning newspapers. Shocked by a photo of Moss Evans, of the TGWU. He is obviously going the same way as Lord Boyle of Handsworth. From a Harry Secombe shape to Mahatma Gandhi in the space of three months.

Rippon: romance?

Rumours about Angela Rippon and Capt Mark Phillips. Miss Rippon says she has eyes only for her husband to dispell stories of a romance that have surfaced in the Australian press. The little newscaster has been spending a lot of time at Gatcombe Park, supposedly writing a book. This has set tongues wagging.

Sarah has announced that she wants to marry Trevor before Christmas, perhaps on Dec 19. Register offices at the moment are refusing to marry people on a Saturday, but knowing Sarah she'd prefer to marry mid-week, like toffs do.

Home at 6 with a heavy head. Ally feeling not much better. ____________.

Mum and Dad have arrived at the Hotel Adler, in Alessio, where they will remain for a week.

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Tuesday September 22, 1981

Bassey: Goldfinger.

 _. A cheerful day at the YP, and not without incident. Shazzo, looking thinner, bounded into the office with tales of horror and hardship as a captive, for two months, in a seething Turkish city. She suffered serious abuse at the hands of her Turkish husband. Locked in a room with other women, and a record player, the only English voice she heard was that of Shirley Bassey singing 'Goldfinger'. In order to keep sane she sat in the squalid apartment, fingers in ears, singing along with Shirley. Her husband, Mr Kocq, is not coming back to Britain. He was here illegally anyway. Poor Shazzo is seeing a solicitor on Thursday. One can never tell just how much of Shazzo's narrative is genuine, but all the same she wraps it up and presents it very convincingly. She's a latter day Charlotte Bronte, if you ask me.

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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Monday September 21, 1981

 _. 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.

Foot: crutches

News: What is all this fuss about the squabble for the deputy leadership of the Labour party? When the victor is announced what will it mean? The title 'deputy leader' is worthless anyway. It's Michael Foot's job that's at stake if you ask me. To see the old boy staggering around Moscow on crutches is pitiful. Saw on the 9 o'clock news that the TGWU is to back Wedgwood Benn and not Healey. Healey was in front but is now 'neck and neck' with Benn. Laughable.

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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Sunday September 20, 1981

 _. 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.

Hardy as Churchill.

Jim and Margaret dropped in at 3pm with details of an advert they want to place in the EP.

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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Saturday September 19, 1981

 _. 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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Friday September 18, 1981

 _. Feel ghastly. Staggered into the YP for three miserable hours. Made good my escape at 12 and met Ally at 12 at her sun-ray centre and then we went to buy a handbag and the weekly veg. A brisk walk through the fishmongers in John Street market cleared the cobwebs from my befuddled brain.

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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Thursday September 17, 1981

 _. 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.

King Arms, Tong.

Home at 6 to Ally and lasagne. Then into a steaming bath. My mother wouldn't approve. She insists that it's dangerous to submerge oneself into hot water straight after eating.

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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Wednesday September 16, 1981

 _. 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. 

Lichfield: best dressed.

Royal News: The Prince and Princess of Wales are going to Klosters in the New Year. The Queen's assistant press secretary, Anne Wall, has resigned to become an extra Woman of the Bedchamber. Over at Kensington Palace Princess Margaret has made it known that she would like to marry again, one day. Lord Lichfield has been voted the 'Best Dressed Man of the Year'.

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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Tuesday September 15, 1981

Len Murray: in rags

 _. Busy day. Study Mrs Thatcher's wonderful Cabinet changes. I hope that Mr Tebbit will stick his boot into the trade unions. I'd like to see Len Murray in rags, on his knees, begging for his life. Have I spoken recently about the Social Democrats? A Mori poll published in the Times yesterday says that the Liberal party, in alliance with the SDP, could win an overall majority at the next general election. I loathe the very idea of such a union, but this outcome would be better than the Labour alternative. I despise David Steel, but can easily envisage Shirley Williams and Roy Jenkins wielding power. The Liberal party conference:  John Pardoe [who is he?] suggests that Roy Jenkins asked to join the Liberals, but that Steel advised him to see what Shirley, David and Bill [Rodgers?] were doing first. Implausible. God Save Mrs Thatcher. I am very happy with the Conservative Government and hope it goes on and on.

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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