Saturday October 10, 1981

 _. Sunny, but cold. Ally went to see Dr Glover at 10:30. ___________. She must have been in the very early stages of pregnancy. He kept referring to 'the foetus'. It might be just a foetus to him.

We went into town and bought a blind for the kitchen window and our weekly food supply. After four hours shopping I was jaded and desolate.

Interesting fact: Ally has never eaten a pomegranite, and she looked on in amazement when I bought one.  Funny, isn't it?

Sausages and chips. Watched the film starring Clifton James as himself playing Field Marshal Montgomery, 'I was Monty's Double'.

Lots of phone calls. Lots of sympathy. 

News: Sadat's funeral. The Prince of Wales attended clad in a white uniform. Three former US presidents were in Cairo, Nixon, Ford and poor Jimmy Carter. Before long I envisage coach loads of former US presidents. Nixon looked old and breathless and far from well. Carter looks like he's 125 years old and Ford looks like an Egyptian mummy.

Erected the blind on the kitchen window. The people waiting for the bus on Cemetary Road are now denied looking in our domestic scene.

-=-

Friday October 9, 1981

 _. To get on at the YP one has to be a sycophantic moron, nay, a 20th century Uriah Heap. 'Mrs Slocombe' is ideally suited.

Dr Glover visited Ally after 4. _________.

Tonight I phoned Mum and Bessie, and later we discussed going into town tomorrow to spend loads of money.

-=-

Thursday October 8, 1981

 _. Better day. A little man came this morning and erected a TV aerial to the chimney and now we are receiving a clear, and un-fuzzy picture. Watching News at 10 we could clearly make out every wrinkle of Alastair Burnet's face, and every layer of taffeta on the prime minister's gown. [Mrs T is with General Zia in Pakistan at the moment]. Oh yes, and speaking of Mrs Thatcher I still think she's the best thing to happen to us since Hereward the Wake. She's got my vote anyway.

Coming home on the bus yesterday [I forgot to mention this] I had to endure the sight of a gang of Social Democrats leaving St George's Hall. They all looked bloody shifty to me. They were all to a man wearing suede shoes, herringbone jackets and puffing on pipes burning St Bruno ready rubbed. Had I been the bus driver I might have been very tempted to mount the pavement and take them all out.

Home at 6. Lamb chops. Ally finds eating something of a labour. Sat afterwards watching 'Jaws'. Thanks to the new aerial we can clearly make out the shark. 

To bed at 11 with Ovaltine. Reading the Times an advert caught my eye 'Play tennis with Bjorn Borg for £400 for three days in December'.

-=-

Wednesday October 7, 1981

 _. More heavy rain. An amusing start to the day. Dr Glover asked for another urine sample from Ally. Scratching round in the kitchen looking for a suitable receptacle we turned up a small jar of Sutherland spread. That did the trick. I marched off at 7:30 in the direction of Beckside Road, brandishing the jar. Was soaked to the skin arriving at the locked surgery only to find that the vital sample would not fit through the letter box. Went back to Club St and left the offending sample with Ally.

Lynn and Frances came and spent the day with Ally. Dave dropped them off at 8:45 and collected them at 6:30. Baby looks very much like a Baker today, other than she has hair and most of that family do not.

Bessie sent a sweet note and a cheque for £5 to 'buy a tree for your garden'. She feels cut off in the depths of Hampshire.

Egypt: Vice-President Mubarak looks like he's holding things together, and will no doubt be elected president. Rumour has it that the Prince of Wales will attend the funeral on Saturday. Jimmy Carter's going too, and Mr Begin. 

Brewed lager.

-=-

Tuesday October 6, 1981

 _. Hideous day. Heavy rain. Left Ally in bed at 7:45. Dr Glover visted her at 10, who told her that she has suffered a miscarriage, and that the loss most likely occurred on September 26. Poor Darling. _____. He did say that depending on a test she might have to go into hospital. He told her to stay in bed.

I got home from work at 6 and we sat on the bed together. Mum and Dad called in and stayed until after 8. Dad took me to the fish and chip shop and bought my dinner. We discussed demolishing and re-arranging the kitchen.

Ally, reclining on the settee, propped up by cushions, is very stoic. If an unborn child was developing badly, it is best that it has gone.

News: President Sadat of Egypt was assassinated this afternoon in Cairo. It's only a month since the Prince and Princess of Wales entertained him on the Royal Yacht Britannia. The Middle East will now be in turmoil.

Watched TV. The Horse of the Year Show on the BBC gave way to 'Sadat is Dead' with the Dimbleby circus. It's a fact that I am more aware of the Middle East crisis that our Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, who is sleeping in his bed, blissfully unaware, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Australia.

Such a horrible day.

-=-

Monday October 5, 1981

 _. Up at 6:30 but ignored the alarm clock until 7:20. Ally, exhausted, remained under her pink quilt. I went to Leeds and phoned Dr Gover. His receptionist went to talk to him and came back with the message that he'll call and see Ally 'one day this week' and that she should remain in bed. She can't go to bed indefinitely - what will Derek Jenkins say?

YP gloomy. 'Mrs Slocombe' has moved into the Cookridge home of ex-President Jimmy Carter look-alike. Sarah announced that 'I might never marry', in a manner somewhat reminiscent of Queen Elizabeth I.

Phoned Mum about Ally. She likes a daily bulletin. The three piece suite returns today from the re-upholsterers. The Pine Tops sitting room now resembles Woburn Abbey.

Home at 6 to find Ally preparing dinner, a casserole. We ate by candlelight. We sat afterwards reading the newspapers. Lord Harewood's autobiography has been published. Did he really kill the poor Princess Royal with his divorce news?

Beethoven, coffee, and Charles Dickens.

-=-

Sunday October 4, 1981

 _. 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.

The parish church.

To Burley with Mum and Dad at 2:30. Joined by Sue [the godmother], Peter, Chris Baker [the godfather], and Julie, and a host of other unmentionable Bakers. At 3 we wheeled Frances across the road to the parish church where she was baptized at 3:15 in the names Frances Anne, by the Rev Donald [?] Aldred.  The baby objected only very briefly and remained wide-eyed throughout. Susan and Chris were the only sponsors. Back to Lawn Road at 3:45 for a buffet, after a photoshoot in the churchyard. Lots of drink. Mum is never at ease with Audrey Baker. They just never seem to 'hit it off'.

-=-

Saturday October 3, 1981

 _. 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.

-=-

Friday October 2, 1981

 _. 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.

-=-

Thursday October 1, 1981

 _. 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.

-=-

Wednesday September 30, 1981

 _. 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. 

-=-