_. 16th Sunday after Trinity
Warm and bright. A fine day for a baptism. We spent all morning in bed. Auntie Hilda phoned to say that the photographer at Jill and Tim's wedding had forgotten to put a film in his camera on the day. Jill is grief stricken.
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| The parish church. |
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_. Up at 7:30 to the sound of the postman. The photographs of Catherine and David's wedding have arrived. We sat in bed looking at the pics. I left Ally in bed.
I went out and bought a conifer and a bag of John Innes potting compost. Came back and spent a couple of hours in the garden like Percy Thrower.
Mum phoned to say they were in Leeds. I said we'd go over and welcome them back at 7.
An interesting story in the press. A local gent by the name of Nicholas Crosse died last week at the age of 50 and it is rumoured that he was the bastard son of the Duke of Windsor. I don't think it plausible. In 1930 at the time of Crosse's birth the then Prince of Wales was entwined in the grasping arms of Thelma, Viscountess Furness. His long standing relationship with Freda Dudley Ward was drawing to a close, and Mrs Simpson was looming on the horizon. Edward liked his women, but did he go around inpregnating the petty bourgeois wives of minor Bradford wool merchants? It has always been rumoured that the Duke of Windsor was sterile. Certainly, from the time of the birth of Princess Elizabeth in 1926 Queen Mary was very aware the child would one day reign.
Went to Guiseley at 6:30 with booze and cushions. Mum and Dad came in at 7. Not as tanned as I thought they would be. We stayed the night. Watched the film 'Julia' with Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave.
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_. I went at lunchtime to Leeds Market and bought bananas and leeks, and meat for the week. I am very much like my grandfather Wilson in this respect. He liked nothing better than to be let loose in an old fashioned market with a shopping bag. I can picture him now, coming down Market Place, at Goldthorpe, bearing a bag with fresh foul, feet poking out, and heaps of veg, for Mum. One of my earliest memories is of Grandad plucking a turkey on the kitchen table at Christmas, 1959.
Home at 6 to find Ally a vision in pink. She phoned Bessie. We dined on pork chops, &c. Sat afterwards reading the Times and listening to Beethoven. All that was missing was a pipe of ready rubbed.
Dave G phoned. He's coming here on Friday Oct 16 for the weekend. In bed at 11 attempting to watch an Alain Delon film but fell asleep.
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_. I came home at 1pm and found Ally snoozing beneath a large volume of the works of Daphne Du Maurier. It poured with rain, heavily, all day. We sat eating beans on toast discussing money. We aren't doing too badly really.
Sat sticking honeymoon photos into an album, looking out at the grey, watery streets. Were we on a scorched Greek island only two months ago?
At 4:30 I went over to the Co-op and filled a plastic bag with vital necessities. Spent £7.50 on green toilet rolls and pots of yoghurt. Bought Ally some bright yellow flowers.
Dined on fried eggs and chips. In bed at 7:20 watching 'Top of the Pops'. I must be growing old. I fail to understand the appeal of some of the so called new music.
News: Mr Trudeau is asking the Queen for independence for Canada. Lord Ampthill, who famously was the baby in the 1920s Russell legitimacy case, has been appointed a director of the YP. Malcolm Barker brought the peer into the office today. Yer real life lords are two a penny at the Yorkshire Post.
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_. JPH is five today and at school. Postcard from Mum and Dad in Alassio - a picture of the Pope's palace at Avignon. Dad is swimming, she says, as she watches, and both are lapping up the wine. They return on Saturday.
Phoned Ally at 11. Home at 6. Had a huge dinner. Went over to the corner shop for a packet of biscuits. In Bradford you cannot buy lemon puffs for love nor money.
We were in bed from 7:30. News: Labour party conference bunkum. Lord Boyle of Handsworth is dead, and so is Bill Shankly. The BBC treat his demise as though he's s world leader cut down in the prime of life. This 68-year-old alcoholic Scot was the manager of a prominent football club, apparently.
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_. I made fried liver and onions and we ate on trays in bed at 7:30pm. Afterwards, still in bed, I had a large drink with bobbing ice cubes, watching Burt Lancaster in 'The Birdman of Alcatraz'. Ally, sticking with Daphne Du Maurier, is now reading 'My Cousin Rachel'.
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_. Up at 6:30 and in the bath. Ally stayed in bed until 10.
News: Healey won the Labour leadership squabble, but only temporarily. The Princess of Wales has appointed three ladies in waiting. Her third cousin once removed Lavinia Baring, Hazel Alston-Roberts-West, and Anne Beckwith-Smith. No shady former flatmates included here, all traditional household appointments.
Ally went to see Dr Glover at 12:30. ____________.
Home at 6. I made lamb chops for dinner, after a chilled Martini. Ally phoned her parents to be told her mother is ill in bed after drinking too much champagne at Goodwood Races.
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| JPH: Fenian. |
We left at about 1. A hideous journey. Lynn felt car sick and threw up at Carrutherstown. I sat holding the baby. Home in Bradford for 7:30. Asleep, unconscious for 9:30.
What became of the Labour leadership election? I forgot to listen to the news.
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| Port Patrick. |
Back at Corner House. Some whisky, but not too much. Bed at 10.
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_. 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.
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| Corner House Cottage. |
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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_. 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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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...
