Thursday February 4, 1982

 Susie went to Hyde Terrace for her weekly check up and they told her to go home and pack a bag and return at 6pm.D-Day has arrived by the look of things. Mum broke this news to me at about 4 and I hurriedly passed on the news to Ally who didn't believe me. I sounded too calm.

Home at 5 and ate and prepared to journey to Guiseley. Dave B called in and put the brass knobs on the door and was a killjoy on the subject of the Nason baby. 'Oh, that', he calmly muttered as he screwed 'it could be days or even weeks yet. It's only blood pressure.' We know it's only blood pressure but surely they aren't going to let Sue take up a precious bed for days on end without actually bringing forth the offspring?

We went over to Guiseley at 7:30 with a bottle of apricot wine and something called pomagne. Joined by Jim and Margaret and later by Julie. Peter came back from Hyde Terrace at about 9 and sat quietly looking tired and lost. He says no delivery will take place soon, and that Sue is resting in the antiseptic peace of ward 6. The atmosphere at Pine Tops was tense. Mum paces about like a bear missing a cub. It was obvious that the evening would end in tears. The plonk was drained and no call came from the hopsital. Mum had a weep. She was just the same last year when Lynn was having Frances. Jim and Margaret left at 1am [Margaret was suffering from mild nausea] and we went to bed leaving Mum and Pete crying on each others shoulders. Just like last week, Ally asks me never to give her gin again.

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Wednesday February 3, 1982

 Tired. Got up, looked in the mirror and gasped. I'm growing old. I'm over 12 stone and have obviously been letting things get out of hand. It's Ally I feel so sorry for. She married an adonis and after only six months she's got Cyril Smith, MP. This wouldn't be so bad if he was a Tory, but ... Liberal! I am going to have to make adjustments to my diet and bring a speedy halt to the spread. My hair is hanging about my ears. It was once one of my finest features, but now it's a dead, rabid cat. Poor, poor Ally. I shall have to swim and forgo luncheon, and take long, brisk walks. This door to door bus service hasn't helped.

YP busy, but pleasant. No girls. See in the society betrothals that Francis Dymoke, heir to the Queen's Champion and standard bearer at the Coronation, is engaged to a Gloucestershire lass. The Queen's Champion. Now that's the sort of job I'd like. No industrial disputes, monotonous slaving, or nine to five hours. His role only comes into being at the coronation. He hasn't worked since 1953. I suppose that I will never live to see an old style coronation. A future Labour/SDP/Plaid Cymru Alliance will no doubt scrap the ancient panoply and replace the ceremony with a disgusting inauguration. I cannot see a King's Champion having much of a role in the Space Age 21st century.

Home to Ally and fish at 5. [I made an early exit again from the office with thanks to ASLEF]. 

We watched a film - 'Halloween'. Ally couldn't take it, and took to her bed but I was gripped until 12:15. Too late really.

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Tuesday February 2, 1982

 A brighter morning. I awoke this morning smiling broadly. I'd been dreaming about the Pope. In my genealogical searches I had found that His Holiness is the son of an Appleyard. Cousin John Paul, eh?

YP still without Sarah or Carol. Phoned Sue at 12. She was having breakfast! She said that she and Peter have decided that they cannot be expecting a baby after all.

The Sun newspaper reports that the Prince and Princess of Wales have been seen having a public slanging match at Sandringham whilst out shooting. This is the first public reporting of a 'royal fall out' between the Waleses and the first of many. Typical that the Sun is the rag to start the 'royal divorce' proceedings. I have been fully expecting it. They spent ten years finding Charles a bride and are now going to devote 40 years and gallons of news print to getting rid of her. Poor Diana. It's going to be hard going.

Mum phoned to say that John has got his job back at R & D's. If you recall he was a joiner at R & D's from 1977 until last year when he was made redundant. Since then he's been at the crash helmet place. I suppose he is mindless with joy. Maria hears tomorrow whether she's pregnant or not. Exciting times. Bed at 11.

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Monday February 1, 1982

 It's February, and Sue has yet to deliver. When she and Pete failed to materialize at Karen's we presumed it was due to the coming birth and that perhaps she was experiencing twinges but oh no. They were living it up in Leeds at Chippy and Johnny's farewell party [they are going to Miami, or somewhere]. 

At the YP found both Sarah and Carol J off. Just Margot and I all day. Busy, but not too bad. Went at 1:30 to the Reference Library to look at the 1861 census for Bramley. Found a 21 year-old Samuel Ross living at Eyres Buildings with his parents Joshua and Mary Ross. We have always liked the name Joshua and I've now found a great-great grandfather bearing the name. On the Appleyard side I found Mary, aged 20, at Midgley Hill, with her widowed mother Christiana, and brother Abbott Appleyard, 25, a stone mason and builder, and Hahhah Appleyard, 32, Elizabeth Appleyard, 29. They were an affluent Victorian family. Later generations founded the garages of that name.

Spoke to Mum, whose heart misses a beat every time the phone rings thanks to little sister, and she says that Jim [Nason] has told her that the pub at Litton, near Arncliffe, is going on the market shortly for £49,000 or £50,000. This would be ideal. A homely little place. The sub post office idea was never them really especially after seeing the BBC news on Friday when the prime minister presented bravery awards to a terrified group of post office workers, some nursing hideous wounds. 

Lynn and Dave have been looking at a house at Pool in Wharfedale [close to Dave's parents], and we are told Lynn has her heart set on it. Dave must be making some serious cash.

Home at 5:30, and played with my home brewed wine. Glynnie phoned and invited us over to Stockport on Saturday. We will go. 

Ally 'Spring cleaning' in the bathroom. We sat in bed squabbling about my milky drinks. She is unhappy with my recipe for hot chocolate, and so I have handed over the job to her for the next 60 years.

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Sunday January 31, 1982

 4th Sunday after Epiphany

When we came home from Karen and Steve's we sat amidst the bed sheets eating crumpets and talking about Lynn. Why is she always so 'cool' with Ally? Lynn drifted into the party, clad in a new mini dress, and chatted to everyone with the exception of Ally who, feeling pissed and disturbed, emptied a full glass of punch, including the fruit chunks, over my head. It is a perfect case for a budding psychologist. What happens to a relationship between two very close girl friends when one goes off and marries the brother of the other? Freaky, man.

I first discovered the day at about 8:30 but then slept until 12:30 and struggled out of bed to stuff a chicken. Washing it in the sink I felt like a midwife, if you know what I mean.

Ally, feeling rough, lay sprawled on a pile of cushions reading Wilkie Collins, which cannot have hepled the situation. We had a weird conglomeration of food. Crumpets with bananas, lots of tea, then yoghurt, oranges, apples followed by a sticky loaf with fruit in, covered in thick butter. Roast chicken later, with cabbage, cauliflower au gratin, roast and mashed potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, &c. All reminiscent of Chatsworth House in 1880.

Films: Carry on Regardless, followed by 'A Shot in the Dark' with the amazing [Peter] Sellers.

Bed at 9:40. Roaring with laughter about something, both in the dark, but cannot now for the life of me remember what was the cause.

I dreamt tonight about Percy Illingworth, headmaster of Fieldhead Rd School 1966-78. Is this sexual? 

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Saturday January 30, 1982

 Awoke at 9:30 and flew downstairs like an over-active pre-adolescent on Christmas morning to snatch the mail from Postie. Yes, I had a letter from cousins Edna and Nellie, at Cambridge Gardens, Bramley. A sweet letter, but giving little further information on John Rhodes (1866-1948). They say that Otley is 'probably' John's birthplace but add that he had a sister, Millicent, who 'lived away from home' and wasn't often seen. Mum suggests that this mysterious aunt is probably the 'mad' aunt of Grandad Rhodes's stories who saw her sweetheart drown in the Strid at Bolton Abbey and then went insane. A Highroyds case I think. The twins sound sweet old girls, and gave me a phone number to contact them with the result of my findings.

To Morrison's with Precious. Afterwards we had sandwiches and I laughed, only half-heartedly, at a prehistoric Will Hay film. Ally buried beneath 'The Woman in White' by Wilkie Collins.

To Karen and Steve's at 8:30. The water supply there is cut off and I looked at Ally in horror _______. Guests: Dave L [who left at 9:30 to go to a party at Sandal], Jacq, Paul, Tim [with a sore eye], Jill, Lynn, Dave B, Diane, Paul E[dwards]. The music was switched off and we watched a Paul Newman film, of all things, and Barry Humphries on the Parkinson Show. Home after 3, or was it 4? Ally on automatic pilot - dangerous really.

NB: My great-grandfather did not have a sister 'Millicent'. His only surving half-sister was Anne Eliza Rhodes [later Robinson] 1875-1954. John Rhodes had a step-sister, Matilda Parker, born in 1866, wife of Michael Elsworth. The story of the drowning in the Strid has yet to be corroborated.

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Friday January 29, 1982

 Ally, feeling rough, stayed in bed after my departure at 7:45. I took a half day and was home at 12:45 and climbed into bed. ______. Downstairs for beans on toast and crumpets, for lunch. We watched a 1942 film starring Vincent Price, and then a Sherlock Holmes film starring Basil Rathbone, but fighting the Nazis and saving Britain from the clutches of the Hun.

Not my cup of tea.

Later we had fish and chips, and Ally, feeling better, got stuck into a 'Miss Marple' tale. I sat with knotted brow quite over-faced by the glut of new book purchases. Which one should I read? For some reason I cannot get into the Hobbit. I don't think Tolkein is my cup of tea, but I don't suppose I have given him a chance.

Mum says that Tony is forming his own business with a similarly redundant colleague. Have I said that Tony phoned me on Wednesday about placing an advert in the paper?

The forthcoming royal birth has been spoiled for me by the coming debate on the order of succession to the Crown which next month may take away the right of the eldest son to succeed to the Crown of his forebears. We are not in Scandinavia for God's sake. The succession to the throne has only been tampered with or diverted in times of great national crisis. In 1688 following the flight of James II, and the death of Queen Anne to secure the protestant succession in the person of George of Hanover. To further amend the succession now, at the whim of a jumped up Labour MP, will only detract from the magic and mystique of the monarchy and lower the whole institution giving it a presidential facade.

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Thursday January 28, 1982

Nellie [left] and Edna Rhodes.

 Black morning. Lay moaning beneath my quilt.

The rail strike continues. At the YP I took at 10 minute lunch break so to escape from the office at 4. Sunny, warm day - Cornish pasty in Park Square.

After lunch Ally phoned from home. She felt faint at the office and has a crippling tummy ache, and is now snuggled down with a book. __________. What will be, will be.

Wrote to my spinster cousins Edna and Nellie Rhodes, twins, who live in Bramley. I picture two sweet old dears not unlike the ladies in 'Arsenic and Old Lace'. It's a little sad writing to cousins, living not ten miles away, whom I have never met. Dad says that his memory of them in the 1950s is that they were very smart, strait-laced old things. Will they tell me where their grandfather, John Rhodes, was born in 1866?

Home at 5. Daylight. Ally in some pain and very weak. We had a pizza. Lynn phoned to report that Christine Airey has given birth to a son. _______________.

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Wednesday January 27, 1982

 No desire to climb out of bed, but we must. I should appreciate my job. It would be quite wrong to pack it in and lay, idle, when the country has 48,000,000 unemployed school leavers. No point in moping. Perhaps Mrs Thatcher should hand over the running of the railways to the unemployed. That would put the wind up Ray Buckton. Perghaps they should force the ASLEF members onto the lifeboats and let them see what it's like doing a proper job. Michael Rhodes, 26, is insane.

The BBC is on the slippery slide. I see little difference between the nine o'clock news and ITN's 'News at Ten'. Is nothing sacred? The Princess of Wales brings cheer to the hearts of this largely sombre nation by smiling up refreshingly from the front page of today's Times. HRH is appearing on stamps throughout the Commonwealth to celebrate her 21st birthday on July 1.

Yorkshire puddings and steak and kidney with Poppet, who was feeling decidedly wobbly, and lay upon the settee, like an Elizabeth effigy, whilst I did the dishes. Afterwards in front of the TV, and later in bed, I thumbed through copies of the Family History magazine, kindly lent to me by Steve Burnip. A Malcolm Fawbert, from Cleethorpes, claims that the Fawbert family are excusively concentrated in the Leeds/Bradford area, and with the exception of only one or two generations, all can be found in Yorkshire. His earliest finds are Abraham and Elizabeth Fawbert, of 'Colbecke' [surely Holbeck?] Leeds in 1560. Direct line back to Isaac Fawbert 1782, baptized at St Wildfred's, Calverley, son of Timothy, son of James. Fawberts are also mentioned in Calverley in 1710 and 1714. I will write to Malcolm and see where Edward Fawbert, my great-great grandfather fits in. 

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Tuesday January 26, 1982

 Steve Burnip is a good lad. He keeps slipping me gems of a genealogical nature and today, when he caught sight of my Wilson [family] tree, he was amazed by the detail. It is warming to have got back to the days of Trafalgar without having to do much hard detective work.

Ally tired and pale tonight. _____________. Home at 6. Out at 7:30 to dinner at Burley in Wharfedale with Lynn and Dave [bearded]. Sue and Pete were dining too and she is bulbous and red and ready [for the baby]. She has to go to Leeds for the accouchement. We had cottage pie and rhubarb crumble by lamp light and drained three bottles of wine. Frances screamed each time they put her down and so she joined us at the dinner table, playing with beer mats and a red dummy. I suppose it's quite wrong to spoil a child at this age but I cannot help enjoying her tiny, yet commanding presence. Even Peter made an attempt to approach his niece and it is dawning on him that babies, for all their inconvenience, are here to stay.

Home after 11. ________.

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Monday January 25, 1982

 Graham Smith's birthday. My grandfather [Mr X of the 1973 diary] is celebrating his 81st birthday quietly today. [He died Sept 9, 1973]. Ally and I shattered. Paid a lunch time visit to the Ref. Lib. No luck for the whereabouts of John Rhodes in 1891. I re-checked Otley. He was definitely not there.

Home at 6 to Ally and fish. Mum phoned to say she and Dad visited Bramley and found John and Christiana's grave in the cemetery there. Dad was appalled at the devastation of the cemetery, upturned grave stones, others daubed in nazi slogans, but my great-grandfather's grave was intact, black marble, gold lettering, green chippings. John Rhodes, I am told, purchased the family grave in 1914, on the death of his son, Henry [Harry] Rhodes, who died June 9, 1914, aged 21. The next inscription on the stone is John Edward Rhodes, a private in the Royal Engineers [no. 57512], killed in action on Aug 7, 1918, also 21. Christiana Rhodes died aged 73, on June 19, 1939, and John Rhodes died aged 81, March 8, 1948. The final occupant is Nellie Rhodes, John and Christiana's spinster daughter, who died Nov 30, 1955, aged 60. A real hive of information, eh? Dad cleaned the grave and says it now stands out like a 'sore thumb'. Sadly, the powers that be are to flatten the cemetery later this year, and grass over the whole site, removing the headstones to the outskirts, and no doubt making a playing field of the place. I'd better get up there with a camera before the end comes.

Phoned Steve Sanderson tonight. Saturday is still on. Ally and I took to our beds quite knackered. 

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