Wednesday February 2, 1983

 The alarm clock made mournful salutation to the hour of six o'clock. We lay amongst our bed clothes softly moaning and calling into question our sanity. Had our usual breakfast of eggs and bacon, and at 7 we were on the London road which was a stupid thing to do because we met thousands of commuters heading in a similar direction. We crawled into the bustling city by way of Chiswick bridge and on to Hyde Park Corner where we deposited Vanessa (the Triumph) in the underground car park at £4.50 a day. We walked down Oxford Street on a bright and sunny morn. We asked a 16 year-old police constable directions to WC2, and he stood for a full 5 minutes looking vague before eventally waving in the direction of Trafalgar Sq saying 'you want the city'. ______. 

We found St Catherine's House at 10:30. I can think of few things more exciting than rummaging in the files for long lost ancestors. My grandmother Ruth Ellen Upton was indexed as Ruth Allen Upton, born at Lewes, Sussex. The marriage of my great-grandparents John Wilson and Rella Fawbert in 1874 took place  between January and March. It must have been a shotgun wedding because their daughter Frances was born in the following August. I come from a long line of accidents. St Catherine's House was full of scurrying genealogists. We had a break and sat in the bar at the Waldorf Hotel eating beef and ham sandwiches and drinking gin and tonic. Peeping through the palms looking for famous people. Ally once saw Anouska Hempel near Harrods in 1973, and would like to imrpove on this. Refreshed we went on to Alexandra House to look at the deaths, but by 2 we were wilting. We took the tube to Knightsbridge and looked at Harrods, and had a fruit juice. The place seems to have lost its superiority. We walked back along Oxford St without spending a penny and at 5:30 went into a pub to rest our weary legs. The barmaid pulled a face of horror when I asked for a lager and blackcurrant for Ally. Why so bizarre? We sat for an hour to avoid the heavy traffic and set off home on moderately quiet roads. Found ourselvles in Fulham, and then circled back to Chiswick. We stopped to relieve ourselves at a motorway services.

Back for 8:30. Fish fingers.

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Tuesday February 1, 1983

 A restless night listening to the howling wind.

Up late and Andrew was still in his room. He says he isn't going into work because he has an upset stomach. However, he was busily eating a tub of ice cream at 11 last night.

We went to Salisbury arriving at about 12. Sadly, a disappointing place. We looked for a decent pub, and spent an hour marching around the streets peering in dull, empty, unfriendly hostelries. The King William IV had the atmosphere of a crematorium. Eventually we found a pub with a sizeable log fire, and we sat astride a bench warming ourselves. We spent two hours criticising the bar staff. The heavily pregnant landlady looked like a hitman for the Gestapo. 

Afterwards we looked at the shops. I bought a maroon coloured sweater for £6, reduced from £12. Sent ridiculous postcards to everyone including one to the YP featuring a badger. Ally gorgeous in her new green boots. We wandered around the cathedral inspecting the tombs covered in medieval graffiti. A couple of women at our heels insisted on hiccoughing and the noise echoed violently around the Gothic erection.

Back at 8 after looking at the antique shops at Stockbridge. Roast chicken for dinner. Fireside scenes.

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Monday January 31, 1983

 Driving, hideous rain. Ally woke me at 9:30. My snoring was driving her crazy. _____________.

I had a large breakfast. It must have cost the lives of eight pigs. Ally has, yes, boiled eggs. 

We went off at 11 to deliver Frank's briefcase to Barclays Bank in Southampton. We got horribly wet in the process and went on to Habitat. We found an ancient pub wherein the Earl of Cambridge and Lord Scrope of Masham were tried for plotting the death of Henry V in 1414, before Agincourt. The beer was awful. After two pints I was willing and ready to join Lord Scrope on the scaffold. We went, web-footed, to the shops and bought Ally some little green boots for £6 (they were £23 before the sale) and I found some jeans which Ally doesn't like because they're the baggy type which narrow at the ankles. 

At 2:30 back to Chillandham Cross. We contemplated tea and buns at Romsey, but were driven out because of the heavy rain.

Phoned Mum. She and Dad are at Horton-in-Ribblesdale with a Pickford's van. They have been busily cleaning Waltergarth. She says the Crowthers have left the place like a hovel.

Andrew came in covered in grease and oil and we had beefburgers on trays in front of the TV. We don't bother venturing out later. A gale was blowing outside dislodging the glass  in Frank's recently renovated greenhouse. Andrew and I watched a Burt Lancaster Western, and Ally went off to bed.

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Sunday January 30, 1983

 Septuagesima

Breakfast after 10. Ally cannot start the day without a boiled egg. Bessie chat chatting endlessly and I have decided she is nervous about flying to Madeira. It's a bright day but some snow fell. Biting cold. 

They went off to Heathrow  at about 1pm, and as soon as they were out of the house things started to go wrong. The lights in the kitchen and downstairs toilet tripped, and the TV insisted on switching itself on and off and jumping channels. Odd. Phoned Mum and Dad. Maria is down with the children and John took them to Ash Tree Cottage yesterday.

Dinner wasn't a success. The sauce was like glue. At 9 we went to the Bush at Ovington for a couple of hours. __________. Back at 10:30 for mounds of toasted currant teacakes and coffee. Bed at 11:30.

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Saturday January 29, 1983

 We were up at about 9:30 awakened by all the activity. Bessie is an early riser and is up at 6:30 most mornings. Whilst we were gobbling toast she came in from her hairdresser at Alresford. She sat opposite me and I could see blue dye in her scalp. She looks very 'Thatcherish'. 

We took the Triumph Acclaim and sped off to Alresford for the afternoon. We left the car on a muddy lane and walked on a path by the river full of mallards and one regal, solitary swan.Some children in fluorescent wellies splashed by and we wallowed in the mud to allow an old army colonel with a red face, and walking stick to pass by. Hampshire is wonderfully picturesque. We pressed our noses up against shop windows and took a shine to a Chinese vase, circa 1740, on sale at £400. Ally bought a pair of faded jeans in a sale for £10. Looked at watercolours too. A nice one of a pebble beach with a boat. 

To the Horse and Groom (to avoid the drizzle) and spent three hours sitting in the bar. Back to Chillandham Cross slightly pissed. Frank took us to Margarita's pizzeria in Southampton at 7:30. We queued to get in and Bessie looked downcast, but inside it was noisy and typically Italian. (We have been before, of course). Frank and Bessie had veal, and Ally and I had lasagne and pizza. Back for 10:30, full and quite knackered. Frank is having trouble settling Cecil Ferguson's will. His new wife is hanging on to everything __________. To bed by 12.

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Friday January 28, 1983

 Full Moon

Fun at the YP. I didn't tell anyone that I'm taking a holiday next week until after 3 and they all looked on in horror. Carol and poor Margo will be the only ones working on Monday. I couldn't hide my grin. I think I must have a terrible sadistic streak. 

Went outside at 5:10 and Frank, in his BMW arrived, with Ally (and she sat up in the front with her Dad because travelling in the back makes her queasy). With Radio 4 blasting and sitting in the back I couldn't listen in on any of the conversation taking place. He insisted on channel jumping when I was in the middle of a concerto or interview. Count Nikolai Tolstoy insists on referring to 'Princess Diana'. Heard the BBC news about eight times. The water workers are continuing to reject the latest pay offer. Billy Fury, an ageing pop idol from 1961, has died from a heart attack. He sang something called 'Halfway to Paradise'.

We arrived at Chillandham Cross at 9 o'clock, and Bessie was waiting with a dinner of pork chops which we had on trays on our knees before the log fire. Andrew passed his motor cycle test today, but didn't talk about it. 

We went off to bed quite early because Ally is still sniffing and giving great chesty coughs. Graham was absent.

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Thursday January 27, 1983

 Blustery to say the least. Late up - it was 7:30.  Just toast. Ally looks better but no recovered by any means and she returned to bed when I left at 8.

Busy day. Mrs Slocombe 's 'what is this?'  badger sensation is sweeping the office. Photostats of badgers in various poses are appearing all over the newsroom. 

At lunchtime I bought Ally some tiny earrings with green stones - 99p. It's the thought that counts. Spoke to Ally on the blower. Mum and Dad are setting out to Pudsey to see Auntie Mabel and then Auntie Hilda. Ally says that Dad is like a cat on hot bricks in the house. A caged animal. (Perhaps a badger?). I hope he'll be kept busy up at Horton.

Tonight we ate corn on the cob and left over lasagne and I attacked a blue Stilton cheese. We browsed through Mum's catalogue and picked out over £100 worth of gear. Top of the Pops and the ghastly Russell Harty. Ally phoned Bessie. Cousin Beverley is expecting a second child. She and Tony (Tebby) have a daughter, Zoë. Graham and Gill have bought a golden retriever of which they will take possession next month. 

Mum and Dad return from Guiseley. ________________. Mum and Dad look like fatted pigs, and worry me greatly. We sat laughing at the way Mum and Dad always go up to bed with four or five newspapers, and they read every page. The rustling goes on far into the night.

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Wednesday January 26, 1983

 A Spring-like day. I do not think that winter is going to materialise this year. Up at 6:30. The traffic outside acts as an alarm clock. Poor Ally is streaming and so confined to barracks. Boiled eggs and toast. Kisses goodbye at 8. I could have given it a miss myself. Bookless to the YP. 

News: 73,000,000 people are having to boil water. President Reagan is the most unpopular president since Jimmy Carter. Princess Margaret is in love with a spotty, teenage ballet dancer. Lord Citrine, who led the TUC back in Neolithic times has died at the age of 95.

Fresh air in the park. Phoned Ally who is missing me. She went back to bed with her book. Mum and Dad were up and off at 9:30. I hid behind a filing cabinet until it was decently possible to make good my escape.

Lasagne with Ally. ___________. She went to bed after Coronation Street and I sat alone. (Mum and Dad were dining with Sue and Pete and going to John's afterwards). 

At 8:10 watched a programme about exiled royalty with Anthony Holden, biographer of the Prince of Wales. He interviewed King Umberto of Italy, who looked ghastly, and a 'Scottish sociologist' Princess Margarita of Rumania, who is 50th in line to the British throne and a goddaughter of the Duke of Edinburgh. She somewhat shyly said she calls the Queen 'Aunt Lilibet', and then promptly changed the subject. 

To avoid Michael Foot and a Labour party political broadcast I went up to bed at 9 and found Ally gasping and sweating. I turned off our bedroom radiator and cheered her up and she is dangling her hot legs on me as I write this. _____________. Found an Alastair Maclean book that I didn't know I had.

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Tuesday January 25, 1983

My grandfather was born 82 years ago today. He always believed he was born the day Queen Victoria died. He was wrong. I've probably told you this before.

No Kathleen at the YP today. She is burying her 'senior' aunt. It was a good day for it. I went out at lunchtime for my daily constitutional in Park Square. A chimney on St Paul's House blew off in the gales last month.

Phoned Ally. She posted our application form to Chef & Brewer at Hipperholme. Such fun. I was at work feeling refreshed and full of glee at the thought of escape. Like a light at the end of the tunnel. Left at 4:15 in daylight and stood for half an hour waiting for a bloody 72 bus which defeated the whole object of my leaving early.

Mum had made chicken stew. They looked at our recent photographs (just arrived). Some good ones of Frances in her red woolly dress.

Ally's cold has worsened and at 8:30 I packed her off to bed with orange juice and paracetamol tablets. I finish S. Birmingham's biography of the Duchess of Windsor. Watched 'The Creature from the Black Lagoon' and Russell Harty at a Burn's Night party which was flat as a fart. Dad and I sat pulling it to pieces. Watched the news. We are in the middle of a national water strike, you know. A first. What did Marie Antoinette say? 'Let them drink Coke'. Bed at 11. Ally hot and asleep.

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Monday January 24, 1983

 Was up at 7 filling in an application form. Why will I be a success in a pub? How can I answer that one? Toast and tea.

I have decided that Malcolm Barker is like Caligula, only more unpredictable. Read the Sunday papers and of Marcia Falkender's account of (Harold) Wilson's resignation in '76. I am suspicious of why he went so suddenly. We haven't heard the last of it. Also read the serialised journals of the Shah of Iran's last ambassador to the UK 1976-77 (in the Sunday papers). Love diaries.

YP: Mrs Slocombe was filing photos of wildlife and held up a photo exclaiming: 'what beast is this unidentified, small and furry animal?' It was a badger. A badger. She hadn't a clue. 

Tonight: Ally's nose glowed like a beacon. She's starting with a cold. Hilda phoned Mama. Karen is pregnant and due in August. Bessie phoned. Penny Browne had a son yesterday. We had fish and chips, and then later on had cheese on toast.  Watched TV until after 12. Mum and Dad sat looking a plumbing brochures for sinks for their Waltergarth bedrooms and for a microwave oven - posh. To bed at 12:30. Poor Ally isn't 100 per cent.

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Sunday January 23, 1983

 3rd Sunday after Epiphany

Communal breakfast. Papa went out and bought a News of the World which was full of lies and nonsense about the Princess of Wales. Sickening.

John phoned and came over with Janette at 3 and we all had drinks while the chicken cooked in its booze-filled pot (yes, I put far too much plonk in with the bird). We ate at 6.

________. Janette was drinking Pernod, and the lethal spirit  'opened her up' so to speak. Dad and I sat watching Shakespeare's 'Richard III' and Janette related her life story to Mum and Ally. I cannot decide which was the most dramatic - the War of the Roses or the War of the Rhodeses (of Lochans, Stranraer). John left at 7:30 for four hours to play Squash with Chris and Pete M. It's disturbing to learn that Chris now listens to tapes of Richard Clayderman, a somewhat unwholesome French pianist, with Roddy Llewellyn looks. Dubious to say the least.

_______. Mum sat quietly nodding throughout. John came back at 11:30 in the ice and took Janette home. ____________.

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