Wednesday January 20, 1982

 Fog, but warm fog. Kissed [Ally] goodbye at 7:30 after boiled eggs and toast. I so wanted to stay at home in bed.

Rail strike. The buses are full of ladies in fur coats and businessmen in sheepskin jackets and deer stalker hats, who usually journey by train. I resent imposters. Really, the people who always travel by train should refuse to work when the railwaymen strike.

Buckton: moody.

Papers dull. Full of articles about rape. The Prince and Princess of Wales have been granted joint armorial bearings incorporating the prince's shield and Garter buckle and the Spencer shells - cockleshells, I think. The press seems to be letting them 'rest in peace' since the Buckingham Palace conference asking Fleet Street to 'lay off'. I haven't seen a photo of Diana in the papers since. Poor Lord Spencer is having to sell paintings from Althorp to pay the death duties of the late earl, who died seven years ago.

Steve Burnip has genealogical contacts in Leeds and on my behalf has made enquiries about the Bramley parish registers and things look good. Edward III here we come!

Billy, God bless him, is 42 to-day. _______________. 

It took two hours to get home from Leeds thanks to Ray Buckton's ridiculous moodiness. Had spaghetti and chips, of all things. We are [illegible] on the lines of Coronation Street.

Read 'Key to Rebecca' and sat in bed reading it until the end, at 12:30.

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Tuesday January 19, 1982

Over 40 degrees F again. YP for 9, and took a 2 hours lunch break and went to the Reference Library to search for Wilson ancestors on the 1861 census [April 13, 1861]. After an hour I found I found my great-great grandparents William Wilson and Betty, his wife, resident at Chapel Fold, Pudsey [now long since demolished I fear]. William, head of the family, is 43, a woollen slubber, and was born at Bramley, circa 1817/1818. Betty, aged 45, was born at Pudsey circa 1815/1816. Of the nine children that we know of from Hilda's family Bible, only six are listed on the census. Mary, aged 16, is a worsted weaver, James, aged 12, is a factory worker, Rhoda, aged 10, is a factory worker, John, aged 8 [my great-grandfather], is a scholar, then Martha, aged 4, and Martha Elizabeth, aged 1. All the children are Pudsey-born. I felt very emotional discovering my roots, quite choked thinking of those poor infant factory workers. Without much effort I have managed to trace the Wilsonsn back to the beginning of the 19th century. It's piquant that my Wilson and Rhodes great-great grandfathers were both Bramley born.

From the office I phoned Bramley Parish Church. They don't have the parish records for 1817/1818. Sod it.

Home at 6:15. Fog. Liver. Bath. Out in the fog at 8 to cousin Jackie's, at Amberley Street, Barker End. Joined by 2 friends and then the new boyfriend, Barry. He is employed at A. Baldwin & Co, who have dealings with the AHA. Out to the Coachman's pub for a few pints of Tetley's - weird really. Our first visit to a pub in 1982.A good night. Home at 12:30.

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Monday January 18, 1982

 Warm and almost muggy. The clock on the YP building proclaimed 43 degrees F.

We were late out of bed and played, toyed, with breakfast until 8:00. Late to the YP, but it is Monday.

John Wilson.

Went at lunch time to the Register Office to see whether they have my great-grandfather Wilson's birth certificate [March 13, 1853]. They say yes, and that they can let me have it later in the week. Then I went to the Reference Library to make enquiries about the census records, and was delighted to discover that the census returns for Pudsey up to 1881 are at the Leeds office. Tomorrow lunch will see me return to the third floor. Can't wait.

Phoned Mama at 10:30. They visited a pub near Northallerton yesterday and attempted to look at a post office at Kirby Misperton [the home of Flamingo Park Zoo], but the fog got the better of them. At least they are still on the 'look out'. She had no news of Sue.

Esacaped at 4:45, home at 5:45. Fish for dinner. We have received 'Mrs Beeton' and 'The Woman in White' by Wilkie Collins, from the book club. We now lookl like a library here. 

Phoned poor Dave G. They now have an alsatian dog named Sadie, to ward off the numerous attempted thefts and break-ins. His grandad is not well and sounds to be fading. He sounds very much to be tied to the Hollywood and couldn't promise to get away to see us soon.

To bed after the 9 o'clock news. This is ridiculous.

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Sunday January 17, 1982

 2nd Sunday after Epiphany

Awoke at about 9:30. We can't sleep on until the afternoon as we used to do. Climbed into the bath. Ally, like a sickly old lady, lay amongst the tea cups, feeling violently sick. She had just taken an iron tablet and thinks it might have disagreed with her. She is still swimming in catarrh, and this can bring on feelings of nasuea, can't it? Ally says it isn't morning sickness.

Frank phoned and spoke about house insurance. By 11:30 she was feeling better and we had boiled eggs and toast and more tea. 

Played with the apple wine and made some date sherry. Watched 'Carry On Teacher' [again] and sat reading. I am into Ken Follett in a big way. Ally is battling on with Agatha Christie's autobiography. I am in Cairo in war-torn 1942, and Ally is in the genteel Home Counties in the post-Edwardian days of 1914.

Dined at 6 on leek and potato soup, lamb steaks with mushy peas, sprouts, mint sauce, followed by cheese and biscuits and all washed down with our very own rosé wine. We live like the Aga Khan, only better.

To bed in the proximity of 10pm. We laid there perspiring. The temperature must be well over 40F, bloody tropical.

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Saturday January 16, 1982

 Hangovers. Ally begged me never to give her gin again. I agreed. I am far from happy too. I made tea and crumpets and we sat in bed forcing them down. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable arrived.

    We went to Bradford shopping at 11:30. Fog. Bought meat and veg, &c, and a date sherry pack. Got Ally Sanatogen tablets to give her iron and make her big and strong.

A freezing, damp and foggy day which seems to linger on the brain. Not good for hangovers.

At home. Watched 'Odette' starring Anna Neagle [1950]. Ally bought me two presents yesterday. 'The Key to Rebecca' by Ken Follett, and a recording of Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor, which has the Peer Gynt suite on the B side. Sat this evening reading the Key to Rebecca, another gripping tale, but please, oh please, when the film version comes to Bradford Odeon, please stop me going.

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Friday January 15, 1982

The Queen and I.

 Warmer. Trains are back, sod it, so no early exit. YP dull. Told 'People' [the YP gossip column] that the Hon Robert Jeremy Hugh Lascelles, born in February, 1955, and twenty eighth in line of succession to the British throne, has taken the plunge, but my morsel wasn't rapturously received by anyone. Sod them. They'll all be screaming when [Nigel] Dempster gets it, or William Hickey, but at least it won't be my fault.

Phoned Lynn to enquire about photographs and found Mum, Dad and Auntie Hilda at Burley. They must be out cheering up poor Hilda, who says that the shock of Tony's redundancy is only just sinking in.

Pete & Sue.

Home at 5:45. Splashed in the bath and helped Ally in the kitchen. At 7 Mum, Dad, Sue and Peter rolled in for dinner. Susie is massive and rounded and looks more like Mum's sister. Had drinks before our sweet and sour steak. Susie talked about baby names. Mum turned her nose up at Samantha, and Samuel and Benjamin received my approval. But, dear me, not Jennifer. Food, wine and more booze. Mum looked at books - endless glossy photos of the Princess of Wales - whilst Dad and Ally did the dishes and shovelled up the excess rice and noodles. I took numerous photos to commemorate what is most likely to be Sue's last motherless visit to Sprog Cottage. They went home between 10:30 and 11. Sue's not allowed to stay up too late. 

Ally was horribly pissed and she sat with her gin and orange, kneeling by the fireplace, giving me a critical report of our first six months as man and wife. I laughed because she had no idea what she was saying, and eventually she disappeared upstairs and fell into bed, wearing her plum coloured tights. God Bless her.

-=-

Thursday January 14, 1982

 Still cold. YP fun. Rail strike Day 2, and so left at 3:45 again. Saw Delia in the foyer who kissed me ____________. 

Home for 5. Ally and I went to Morrison's early for our weekly provisions. Back at 6:30 we had curry and noodles on trays in front of the TV. Top of the Pops, David Attenborough talking about hedgehogs [very good], and Shoestring. Finally, Lord Harewood talking about his apparently dismal life. _______. George Harewood said, referring to his relationship with his first wife, that they get on quite amicably and met recently at 'my third sons wedding'. That's another Lascelles offspring to marry in secret. James Lascelles married a Yank in 1973, and produced a daughter, Sophie, six months later. Viscount Lascelles married the mother of his two children in 1978, and now Jeremy has wed, but to who?

Phoned Cousin Jackie at 7 and arranged to go over next Tuesday. She has a new boyfriend, Barry, a weight-lifter in the building trade.

To bed by 11:30.

-=-

Wednesday January 13, 1982

 Frost and ice again. National train strike, and so I set off slightly earlier prepared to do battle on the buses but found they were not overcrowded.

Worked through at lunchtime so enabling me to escape at 4pm. The bus was fully of schoolboys with greasy hair and spots effing and blinding.

Home before Ally and to pass the time I peeled potatoes and bashed around in the kitchen like a gourmet.

Mark Thatcher: lost

News: The prime minister's son is missing in the Sahara desert with no water and a French tart. Denis Thatcher has flown to Algiers to join the search and poor Mrs T is in Downing Street 'strained and red eyed'. The boy hasn't been heard or seen of since Friday and his fate does indeed look bleak. These Thatchers are a funny lot. The girl, Carol, writes for an obscure Aussie rag and rarely comes home, and Mark hasn't done a decent days work since mummy assumed the mantle of Tory leader. Mind you, I suppose it's better than a Baldwin situation. Poor Stanley had his own sons facing him across the Commons on the Labour opposition benches.

The TV is diabolical. Night after night of endless quiz and chat shows aimed at the old and greedy. The same old mundane faces of so-called superstars in the shape of Ted Rogers, Arthur Askey, Roy Jenkins and Jimmy Tarbuck, &c. I could be physically sick. Ah well, I suppose it helps to take our minds off the continuing decline of our great country. Sarah announced she is going to commit suicide when the miners go on strike and bring on the dark nights with power cuts. I am looking forward to the long dark nights, when the TV stands cold and young couples have little else to do but climb beneath the sheets to keep warm. Perhaps the population will receive a much needed boost because by the look of the '81 census the population is declining and we'll soon be going the same way as the dinosaur.

We had dinner by candlelight and afterwards Ally went up to the bathroom to shave her legs. She likened them to those of a giant panda. Her cold is subsiding but the catarrh and phlegm is still evident.

We giggled on the sofa, behaving like fools. She has an infectious giggle. I just collapse amongst the cushions when she gets going.

-=-

Tuesday January 12, 1982

 Warmer day, but still freezing though. We lingered in bed and only struggled out at 7:30 for our boiled eggs and toast.

Ally is sproggy, but feeling better than last night. She complains that she is permamently ill with one thing or another and I put it down to our circumstances. The after effects of marriage. 

Rabbit pie?

Bessie has told Ally that eating rabbit can be the cause of miscarriages in pregnancy, and that a doctor told a friend of hers with gynaecological problems to abstain from the bunny, and sure enough she produced a healthy offspring. We don't believe a word of it, but it has put us off rabbit pie for life.

YP the same. Kathleen is going through another trauma. An aunt has collapsed and is near to death with an exploded duodenal ulcer, and to make matters worse, on Saturday she took her mother to the MFI warehouse to look at hideous modern furniture, and to take her mind off the sick aunt, only for the hapless mother to fall head long into a kitchen unit knocking herself insensible. Should both mother and aunt be called to that great formica warehouse in the sky it will be goodbye to Kathleen until at least October.

Phoned Susie at 1pm. She was lunching with Mum, Dad and Pete. She thanked me for the list of Christian names and she surprised me by saying she has drawn up a short list from it which will accompany her to Hyde Terrace. I had a word with Mum and she says the four of them will come for dinner on Friday. It will be the last time we see Sue at Club Street before her confinement.

News: the papers are empty and dull. Lord Poltimore is engaged. So too is the Hon Paul Chetwynd-Talbot, who sounds very much like an Evelyn Waugh character.

Home to a fried creation at 5:45. Whilst I was in the bath Mum phoned Ally and announced that Uncle Tony and Tim are to be made redundant. Poor Tony. Tim too, newly married, and now joining the ranks of the 47,000,000 unemployed.

Have I said that Ally is keeping a journal too? We are both writing furiously at this moment. How will they compare, I wonder?

We went up with our books again and snuggled down. Bliss.

-=-

Monday January 11, 1982

 Deep frost. Up at 7:20. Couldn't get out of bed. Ate piping hot porridge and went out to de-ice the car which was hidden beneath six inches of solid ice. Kissed Ally goodbye and went off with my cheese sandwich at 8:00. YP late.  

Thinning Diana? Poppycock.

News: See in the hideous trashy papers that the Princess of Wales is refusing to eat a proper meal for the fear of putting on too much weight and, according to Princess Michael of Kent, the Royal Family are extremely worried about a thinning Diana and her unborn child. Poppycock. She seems to be a sensible girl and I'm sure she wouldn't be placing the baby HRH in jeopardy. Besides, they wouldn't let her. 

Peregrine Worsthorne, in the Sunday Telegraph, says that at the death of George VI, 30 years ago next month, panic set in when his widow, the Queen Mother at 51 thought she might be pregnant. We would have had a 'pregnant pause' for six or seven months, and if she had given birth to a son then the infant would have succeeded to the throne, displacing Elizabeth II. I bet they were shrieking with laughter at Sandringham over that one. Yes, women can give birth at 51, but not the Queen Mother and certainly not after a gap of 21 years after the previous confinement.

Other news: Sir Roy Jenkins [Prime Minister 1984-2001] has been offered Glasgow Hillhead as an Alliance candidate. The by-election is caused by the death of Lord Strathclyde's heir, Sir Thomas Galbraith, who was knighted on Jan 1 and who died on Jan 2. It will be the first foray of the SDP into Scotland and may not be the landslide in Woy's direction as they seem to think. Watched the news and felt sick watching Woy grinning like the Cheshire Cat. Shirley Williams is now on crutches after an incident with a sleigh on Christmas Day. I suppose the SDP publicity machine is hinting that our Shirl is one of Santa Claus's little helpers. A Yuletide fairy. 

Spoke to Mum this afternoon. They are showing interest in the purchase of a pub at Cattall, near York.

Susie has high blood pressure and is suffering from dizzy spells. Mum says they'll have her in hospital and bring on the baby if this continues. Not a good thing.

Had a gin and tonic and took to our bed at 11:30 with Agatha Christie and Princess Margaret. Ally feeling groggy. Not sure whether it's the after effects of the gin or catarrh. Her eyes are heavy and she is decidedly pale.

-=-

Sunday January 10, 1982

 1st Sunday after Epiphany

Up at about 10 to hear Dave clomping around in the bedroom singing. They get up ever so early now that Frances is on the scene. We had a large fried breakfast at which I was chief cook. Ally hates frying, and the unpredictable, spitting cooking fat.

The Bakers left at 12:30 to look at a job at Bingley. But first Dave went around the house with a screwdriver. He was under the bed, spreadeagled, adjusting the bolts. He is invaluable to any household. Stuff Black & Decker, I have a Baker.

Afterwards I watched the football on TV and peeled nine and a half pound of Martyr Worthy apples to make seven pints of apple wine. This theraputic exercise took two hours. Ally was upstairs putting bees wax on our Hepplewhite. We are industrious little people.

At 5:30 I watched a late Clark Gable film and then we had steak and kidney pie, or pudding, by candlelight. Last Thursday we gave Mum 'Princess Margaret' by Nigel Dempster, and yesterday Lynn delivered it back for us to read. Mum read it in two days. Spent the day reading about the poor, downtrodden princess. I have always said it was Snowdon who was the first to be 'naughty' in the marriage, and it's refreshing to see him having a spattering of shit for a change. Princess Margaret, we are told, keeps a diary. Now that would make excellent reading, but her writings are not likely to see the light of day in my lifetime.  Bed at 9:45.

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