Diary 1973 - Year of violence, Suez war,

1973 Diary

Monday, Jan 1st - Busy getting my talk planned out for the Women’s Club on Wednesday. Ordnance maps 50 x 50 mounted on hardboard to illustrate the local history - camps and tumuli, Roman roads, white monks, sheep, Westcote, woolmen and churches, down to canals and coaches.

Wednesday, Jan 3rd - The talk in village hall. Eight present but went well and they were obviously impressed by the trouble I had taken. Unluckily it was foggy and in trying to park my car outside hall had ditched in drainage channel and had to leave it there all night. Only got by 9 p.m. as far as woolmen so stopped there and hope to continue later. Mrs Shelmerdine kindly drove me home.

Friday, Jan 5th - Our entry into Europe was celebrated by an imaginative programme at Covent Garden attended by Queen and P.M. Music and verse and prose. Olivier, Judi Dench, Max Adrian, and octogenarian Sybil Thorndike. It opened with a fanfare and Churchill’s splendid words spoken by Olivier: “Why should there not be a kind of United States of Europe which could give a sense of enlarged patriotism and common citizenship to the distracted peoples of this turbulent and mighty continent?” Olivier also quoted Byron’s list of his foreign mistresses ending up “All whores!”

What an event! Feel I am part of history.

Saturday, Jan 6th - Went round to have a drink with Roberts girls and had a short session with Cicely. A new surgeon has come to Cheltenham and he recommends an operation and has told her cancer is “a nasty way out.” Better to die after an operation than by a growth. Anyway she has decided to go into hospital when there is a bed.

Heard from Phyllis this morning. Would like to invite her over but Mary vetoes it. Phyllis is popular with men but disliked by women - a non-union member in sexual relations!

Wednesday, Jan 1th - Went over to Stratford to stay at Old Swan’s Nest, entirely rebuilt and more comfortable and friendly since we last stayed there in 1941! The Dream has been condemned by Miss Player and praised by Michael Collard. I thought it AWFUL TRIPE and nearly came out. It was Shakespeare, whom I revere, beatle-ized and maltreated. The verse was shouted and mangled, the actors jigged and twisted, Puck was dressed as a circus clown, Oberon and Titania were hauled up and down on trapezes and the rude mechanicals were made very rude, not to say obscene!! It was played in a white box with two doors, accompanied by a guitar and jazz drummers. The Warwickshire countryside might never have been mentioned. We came out and fortified ourselves with a glass of port and went to bed.

[This production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was by Peter Brook, made a world tour and received rave reviews everywhere].

Monday, Jan 15th - Believed peace in Vietnam near. US accused by S. Vietnam of selling out to Russians in order to contain China.

Tonight to Mrs Dockar at Clanfield. Usual blah. Rude one minute and all false bonhomie the next. Mr Dockar’s stomach so big he can hardly get through the door sideways! Am to go two mornings a week.

Wednesday, Jan 17th - To Cheltenham to find hospital. When we saw Cicely, Mary was shocked by her appearance, so ill, so white, bloodless and thin. I doubt whether she survives the operation tomorrow, poor dear. Confusing enough in an enormous hospital without being blind in addition.

A Mr McWhirter has got the appeal court to stop a film on ‘pop culture’ (so called), which the Independent Telly Authority had not seen, of a naked girl smearing her breasts with paint and then pressing them on a canvas. “One doubted,” wrote one critic, “whether we were dealing with a mind at all, affecting a total inability to communicate, a kind of zombie” - such is pop culture, the Beatles et al.

Saturday, Jan 20th - Cicely “comfortable” said hospital, but Cil, who had been to see her said still very confused and did not recognize them....Jan 21st - After tea Cil rang up. Cecily had had a haemorrhage and they had been summoned to hospital as she was sinking. She died at 11.45 tonight without recovering consciousness.....Jan 22nd - I shall miss Cicely. I have been her reader for eight years. She was a marvellous old girl, 88 years, and considering she was blind remained alert to the time she entered hospital. I must have read quite a few books in the time, starting with ‘The Corner That Held Them’.

Wednesday, Jan 24th - Mary’s and my downland anniversary of 33 years ago. I gave her a very nice silk scarf. To Reading. To the George. The whole hotel was full of very objectionable canned music so I sat with Lise in the courtyard until Nora arrived. Then went to The Ship, where the music was less loud. Chicken, N & M, lamb cutlets Lise. Much discussion about the summer holiday. Hilary will not tolerate the planes and would like to rent a house or van or perhaps Nora thought stay at the Bledington Guest House. Nicholas according to Lise is growing up. He is a great reader and is a very thoughtful person. He is beginning to show a keen interest in mathematics and I guess he is on the road to becoming a physicist or an engineer rather than a historian.

Thursday, Jan 25th - To Cicely’s funeral at 2.0. When Leadbeater came out of the Vestry, muttering still continued and I guesses correctly that the Bishop of Ely was in there with Johnny Roberts. Presently he emerged in lawn sleeves and black silk chimere. The ashes were in a small oak box covered with a purple pall and some flowers flanked with two candles. After the full funeral service we went out to a small hole, dug overlooking the valley and St John’s Cottage at the east end of the church. There was a lady in a fur coat (?Mrs Bishop) and a powerful car with a chauffeur (?the episcopal chariot).

Sunday, Jan 28th - Yesterday fighting supposed to stop after treaty signed in Paris, but seems doubtful whether it has. These elaborate and long negotiated treaties are not worth the paper they are typed on. The communists have no intention of observing them and the South Vietnamese have only been forced by the U.S. against their better judgement to agree. However, American  out of war at last.

Saturday, Feb 3rd - Joan King came to lunch. Last met her in Elliston’s 10 years ago. Now she is vice principal of Dorset House and nearly 40. Dark, thin aquiline nose, black eyebrows and eyes, good teeth. Non smoker. Long narrow hands. Told us about her experiences in Argentina and Portugal and her work with adolescent drug addicts at the Middlesex Hospital. All dead by 30! Went through the H.G.S. group photographs and pupils and staff, Tom and Len etc etc. A very nice person.

Monday, Feb 12th - My birthday. Feel I have aged a great deal in last six months - fits of giddiness, loss of memory, and more forgetful. Letters from Marjorie (Wilkinson), Con, and Nora, so three of my girls have remembered me. Up to Stow to get pension and found letter from Cherry, then to Manor House, Moreton, for lunch. Grape fruit juice, omelette, rhubarb tart, a glass of white wine, coffee in lounge, back and slept an hour.

Saturday, Feb 24th - Tonight 9 - 10 p.m. M started up for second hour cross examination on me and C. As usual did not get far and vague threats of leaving me. Her week, my week, ‘Meeting her in my week’, and so on. But on reading sixties diaries fund she had said much the same about Con and the Humanists!

Tuesday, Feb 27th - Found at Clanfield Mrs Dockar in bed with mumps and temper (said Mr D) “awful”. I got back about 12.50 and Mary obviously thought I had been, as she put it, “necking” with C on my way to Clanfield. Told her C at school but she did not believe me. Rang up Westminster Hospital and gave address and telephone number as possible bone marrow donor as I am O Rhesus+, which is one in 50,000. In Telegraph yesterday tale of small boy whose life might be saved by transplant.  

Thursday, March 1st - Anniversary of 1940. Off at 3.30 to tea at Cobweb, Stratford. Stayed at Swan’s Nest, Room 40, with bath. To Royal Ballet, Le Spectre de la Rose, Triad, Pineapple Poll with Sullivan’s music and Osbert Lancaster’s decor. Very jolly but rather long. We then had two white ports at hotel and I had a bath and very satisfactory time in bed.

Friday, March 2nd - Breakfast, lots of hot coffee and a huge dish of prunes. To Barclays Bank to get money. Wondered if I could ask them to use their loo, but tried to get to gents in Theatre Road. Owing to failure to find coin for W.C. did not  quite make it and shat very copiously in pants. I then  had to remove pants and trousers and first get off shoes without making things worse. Then try to clean floor and seat and flush out. Wrapped very soiled long pants in silk muffler and exit to Mary, who was wondering anxiously why I was so long, and back to hotel and cleaned up as far as possible in bathroom. Mary supplied red female pants. Donned these, though it made pissing a major operation. “Defendant when arrested was found wearing a woman’s red garment”.

Sunday, March 4th - David and his girl friend Rosemary did not appear till 12.55 and we wondered if they were not coming. David, we both felt, had changed a great deal - more solemn and much aged. Rosemary, a funny fat-thighed little girl, barely comes up to his shoulder. She is very plain now and she will not improve with age. They had both been to a retreat in Devon for ordinands and their wives or fiancées. Clearly any jokes about ‘the cloth’ were not acceptable. We both wondered how David had fallen for such a small and physically unattractive little girl (whom Mary went so far as call a squirt!). Was it the separation from his twin, his home or what? And what had the devil dodgers done to make him so solemn and knocked all the gaiety out of him so that now he appears to have all the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Saturday, March 10th - To West Hendred where we camped in 1945. Snowdrops and primroses out together in churchyard. Then to White Horse via Wantage along road where Mother, Father, Molly and I drove in a pony cart in I suppose 1921. From there to Compton Beauchamp, which I always find calm, restful and reassuring. Home via Shellingford, where the rector, who stank of baccy, showed us an amusing inscription on a gentleman “of considerable natural parts” who retired to Ireland and obviously did nothing.

Monday, M    arch 19th - Tonight that peculiar man Scaramanga came up to see me about the Parish Meeting. He neither greeted Mary who was gardening or removed his cloth cap when he entered the house.!! Eton and Brazenose!!!

Thursday, March 22nd - Went into Burford church and coming out of the Tanfield chapel met an elderly chap wearing a Keble tie, who proved to be Berkley - a contemporary - now living in London. Moral - always wear your college tie!

Saturday, March 24th - F. L. Attenborough, Principal of University College Leicester, died last Tuesday. He was a lovely man after my own heart, father of the actor Richard and the naturalist David, and much approved of my attempts in the Education Department to civilize the BSc’s from the provincial universities, unavailing as they probably were.

Sunday, March 35th - I enjoy preparations for Catherine’s history lessons very much [Catherine was pupil at Mrs Dockar Drysdale at Clanfield]. How grateful I am to the Crab who when I said I wanted to be ordained and read theology, said ‘No! You’ll be reading theology for the rest of your life. You must read history!’ This again made it easier for me to give up the idea of ordination in 1920-21.

Saturday, March 31st - A fine morning so set out for a drive. Burford to Black Bourton to see the wall paintings, which I had forgotten, and then to Hatford. Knocked on Mrs Simpson’s door, but no answer. Went to Mr Bayliss, the farmer. He told me Mrs Simpson was found after some time lying in a coma and had been taken to the Radcliffe and was now living with relatives at Kingston Lisle. Next to Stanton, where we visited the rector, Mr Fry. Enquired about the sale of Hatford new church. Access is to be on the north side so the graves, including Grandpa’s, on the south side will not be disturbed. Mr Bayliss had roofed the nave of the old church with some red tiles and beams without asking for faculties. I congratulated him on the inside of Stanford Church to which he had transferred the pews from Hatford and re-floored the nave with tombstones from the churchyard. He was pleased and said he had to cope with conservative opposition who wanted nothing altered, but he had been helped when a girl in the village tore the seat out of her tights and rushed up to his garden to show her bare bottom to the visiting bishop. He also told us how in the Hatford parish register one incumbent used to write ‘Bastard’ in black ink. A later one had crossed the word out in pencil and written ‘single’. Then to Shellingford to copy the following to William, Viscount Ashbrook, “who blessed with strong natural parts, cultivated and improved by rational study; with a quick apprehension corrected by solid judgement, would have conferred honour on any trust or employment in political life, but preferring the tranquillity of retirement to the tumult of business, he devoted himself to innocent amusement of the exercise of hospitality, charity, benevolence and all other amiable virtues.”

Letter from Nora today. “What I learnt from you about history and houses and how to look at them.”

Monday, April 9th - Bustled up to Stow (though the cold was so intense with frost and snow that the car refused to start and almost ran the battery flat) to doctor’s to get vaccination. OK. Done 10.40 by Mrs King. Then we had to go to Moreton Council Office to get the signature authenticated. All this bother because a mistake had been made with some vaccine by a technician in London and the World Health Organisation had made England smallpox area.

Tuesday, Apr 10th - On news tonight a bad air crash at Basle in a snowstorm and 96 people killed, mostly from a few villages in Somerset. Bad when had just got our Alitalia air tickets for Venice.

Saturday,  April 14th - To Stratford for Romeo and Juliet. House with a balcony so high that from back row of stalls could only see Juliet’s feet! Tybalt and Mercutio excellent but am afraid that at one point I went to sleep.

Monday, April 16th - Taking silver to bank which is always very tiresome as they will seal everything and make me sign five times. Rang up police in Stow and told them house empty.

Tuesday, April 17 - April 24th - Venice. To Reading and to Heathrow by coach. Wait in lounge but no sign of others of party or Miss Marion Cole. [On arrival] wait on jetty for half an hour, strike or something. Meet Miss Cole, kind of female ‘Crab’. Taxis to reach Pensione Cici. Room not made. Snags raise ugly head. No hot water, no bedside lamp for me, most inadequate light. Dinner 7.30. Noise and shouting terrific. Miss Cole sits at our table but cannot hear her and she cannot hear me either.

Wednesday, April 25th - Hugely delighted with amenities in Long View, Westcote, lashings of really hot water in taps, loo which flushes properly, beds warmed, and our beloved hill top town of Stow and the pleasant Gloucestershire people who understand our English.

Saturday, April 28th - Off to Stratford to see Richard II, but had forgotten they had moved “the birthday” from Monday to today. We crawled into town foot by foot. the theatre and snack bar was full of black men in frock coats, so we went to find snack bar in Sheep St and had pizzas and coffee. Richard II for me has been so flogged by schoolmasters that I find it difficult to like, but this performance by Richard Pasco, a large flat-faced man, was superb, as near perfect as it could be. He emphasised the heiratic character of medieval kings with a gold crown and gold masks. At the end Bolingbroke wore the crown and golden orb, but his face under the crown was represented by a skull!

Friday, May 4th - A nasty parish meeting. Scarry turned up with no proper balance sheet (though the rector asked for one) and it was pretty useless. The council house troublemakers - the Denhams - came (and a lunatic young woman, Mrs Cass) and attacked me because Denham said he had seen me putting grass cuttings on the verge - a case I think of mistaken identity - and the lunatic woman wanted the common levelled (£10,000) so the children could have swings and roundabouts! Ever since I got Tattles tidied up and grass sown and the tins they dumped buried he has been gunning for me. At present he is making a  nuisance of himself to the Chisletts by washing his car on the verge with the wireless going. I told them I would only stand for chairman for another year and that’s all I will too.

Monday, May 14th - Mary very cross (you might almost say hostile) since Thursday. I told her I was lunching with Kathy* tomorrow and needed crispbread, told it would break my dieting and had broken it on Thursday, as she put it, “boozing with Cherry” and coming home “smelling of drink”. So that’s it! As patient as I knew how to be, and that’s very!!

*Kathy Watson, owner of bookshop in Burford

Monday, May 28th - Yesterday a lovely summer’s day but today, the Whit holiday, a flop. Misty, thunderstorms and drizzle.

Papers full of vice rings involving Lord Jellicoe and Lord Lambton. Not interested in another outbreak of morality covered up by “security risks”, which do not carry conviction. After all Mr Gladstone said he had known 13 prime ministers and 11 were adulterers!

Thursday, June 21st - Row at breakfast because meeting C. Claimed breach of agreement. When I met C at 12.30 found her distrait after two hours on telephone with Mary. Home 9.30. No further recrimination.

Saturday, June 23rd - National Trust trip to Greenwich. Picked up coach at 9.20. To Festival Hall by Westminster Bridge. Ate lunch under plane tree on embankment, then by Charing Cross foot bridge to pier, embarked and off. Tide low and boat slow. At Greenwich only 50 minutes and most of party over Cutty Sark. Took M to Painter Hall and showed her where sat at lunch (see Diary Nov 29th, 1943). Mr Jehan had made the usual muddle over the boats and we had to queue a log time in great heat, but eventually off to Charing Cross and back to Festival Hall. A concert I enjoyed and more queues for tea and buns. Put down at Burford at 10 p.m. Home hot and sticky and exhausted.

Sunday, June 24th - Funny party this evening at Betty Leopold’s with Robinsons from the Old Rectory. Knew he had been vice chancellor of Hong Kong and expected something a bit dry, instead we got a very rumbustious Oxford don from Hertford and Nuffield knocking back Betty’s whisky. Educated at Manor School Walthamstow of all places!

Friday, June 29th - No late train from Reading to Kingham enabling us to attend the social after David Mear’s ordination but Mary got Cil to offer to pick us up at Oxford at 11.5 and drive us home. This we did. Reading 6.10, then up to Christchurch by bus. The church was a Gothic horror full of impossible capitals and generally dirty. However it was full of the faithful of various denominations and colours. On the whole the service was “low” and the communion was spoilt by the use of modern idiom where God is addressed as You, not Thou, and the Lord’s Prayer was transmogrified. David looked very fine in his clerical suit and dog collar. A good thing he is engaged and will not like John Hunter have to take refuge from his parish females on heat in the organ!

Saturday, June 30th - Over to Cokethorpe to see a skirmish with “The Sealed Knot”. Fire engines and police much in evidence. A huge grass field with some straw bales in the middle representing the village, some cannon at either end. Amusing to see the executive buffers and the county clambering on their horses in coloured pants and armour. The musketeers popped away and at intervals the cannon went off with a deafening roar and much smoke. There was a public address system which of course broke down. The cavalry galloped up and down and there was eventually some fighting over the straw bales. We wisely came away early before the cars had churned the field into a morass.

Thursday, July 5th - 17th, Visit by Danes.  Clanfield being cleaned by village women for garden party - “living like pigs” their verdict. Mrs D had rash - “and no wonder, bed full of dog hairs”. Danes arrived from Con quite exhausted by traffic, narrow roads, and lorries; Boys much the same size, hair very long. Friday - Up to Stow with Hilary and family. Harry Dart when we came in six strong for coffee had to put us up in the roof where we had never been before. In p.m. boys went off with Hilary damming steam. They had forgotten nothing of their activities two years ago. Saturday - To Bledington village fete with family. Sunday - Hilary, Lise and boys went off to falconry exhibit at Sudely Castle but a poor show. Wednesday, July 11th - Took Nicholas to Hailes and Tewkesbury. this was viewed with doubt by his parents and Mary who thought it would be “over his head” but in fact it was a success - excavations were going on at Hailes, and the museum, much improved, was reopened. Tewkesbury as wonderful as it always is. We had lunch at the Tudor House Hotel, mushroom soup, roast lamb and apple pie and cream. Badger caught a mouse. Nicholas picked it up and it bit him in the finger! Thursday - Up to Clapton for jamming strawberries. Got some for tea but no reaction from Hilary and Lise. Odd! Hilary in Greenland replying for the journalists, spoke Greenlandic, which none of the Danes will utter, including the governor. Reindeer, whale and guillemots, Eric the Red!

Friday -  Stow shopping. Harry Dart said how much alike Hilary and I were! Danes went to Farm Zoo. Nora arrived from Burford. Very white hair and pale. Irritated by children breaking into adult conversation. Shouted “Shut up”.  Sunday - Poured all night and all day. Nora, Lise, Hilary and children to Windrush and came back soaked to tea. Monday -  Windrush valley picnic with fire, tea. The railway cutting much overgrown. Windrush crossed by Jacob and Nicholas. Thursday, July 17th - Visitors stayed to lunch - roast chicken - and at 3 p.m. departed for Jenny Tydeman’s with Nora, boys and car packed with camping gear. After this we went for cream tea to Stow and got films, which were good, of Badger, Nicholas and Jacob. Think I am really getting too old and set in my ways to tolerate visitors of 7 and 11 years old and Nora who supplements or contradicts everything you say.

Friday, July 20th - In Harry’s put at table with little American woman who was on a tour of Ireland, England and Scotland. Had 30 minutes in Stow on way to Bristol and Bath in afternoon. Found she came from Oklahoma, a thousand miles from Atlantic. Harry said they sometimes only allow them 10 minutes in Stow!

Thursday, July 26th - Heard Nicholas went into a shop to buy eggs and asked for a pound instead of a dozen, but explained, ‘I live in Denmark.’

Monday, Aug 6th - The fatal day of 1914 on Saturday, but forgot it.

Tuesday, Aug 7th - Began an index of the indexes of the individual diaries 1940 - 43, but slow work as I inevitably began reading them. Really Mary and I had a very free life 1940-57 and went and saw a great many theatres, buildings, places, exhibitions and so on.

Saturday, Aug 18th - By bus from Chipping Norton to see Love’s Labour Lost. They romped through under a kind of green silk umbrella, but it was not as good as Redgrave’s in 19... Stratford traffic awful. We wandered through our old haunts of the ‘40s in New Place Gardens. Very crowded. French, Americans, Nigerians and Indians in abundance.

Tuesday, Aug 21 - Picked up Madeleine Williams, Mary’s friend, at the Guild House, Stanton, where she was taking a week’s spinning course (21 guineas) under Mary Osborn. But alas like Mary it was bogus. Mary gave little or no instruction but spends her time preparing health food meals, which gave Mary diarrhoea. Had a good laugh about her experiences then returned her to Stanton.

Friday, Aug 24th - Sad to hear that the noble 300 year old Elm in the square at Stow had Dutch elm disease and though it will be treated no cure guaranteed.

Saturday, Sept 1st - Over to Cuddesdon for David Meara’s wedding. Parked in college and walked to church where there were a lot of grey top hats and frock coats and ushers in black tails. Everything of the best, printed service pamphlet, floral decorations, infant bride’s attendants, boys in kilts, Richard in black topper and church frock coat, bride in gauze and train with orchids on top, the vicar in cloth of gold chasuble and non-conformist parson in bands. The whole thing with communion lasted 45 minutes. After that they hung about for ages in the churchyard taking photographs while I sat in the church and examined memorials to past bishops of Oxford. Finally we walked to the marquee in the college grounds - guests to file past the wedded pair. I didn’t but secured a table. The catering excellent, sandwiches, Vouvray, tarts, tea, wedding cake, strawberries and cream, scampi and bacon on sticks. Speeches, and at length about six o’clock the bride and groom left and we finally got home utterly exhausted.

Wednesday, Sep 5th - Asked Kathy to lunch and prepared a picnic though Brie was too ripe, tomatoes, peaches, and ryvita. Had to provide own plastic cutlery and crocks to avoid comment and questions. She seemed pleased to go to Chedworth, where we picnicked overlooking the villa. I had brought a bottle of Spanish sweet - no halves available - I drank most of it and became inebriated. Kathy was excellent, drove me to Burford very well, dosed me with black coffee and about 4 let me go home - though still had to walk carefully, feet wide apart! and Mary who believed I was with Cherry noticed it!

Monday, Sept 17th - To Portsmouth and by ferry to Ryde. Met be Eric [Attrill] and driven to vicarage, a huge Edwardian brick house of which they occupied two thirds. Enormous rooms and ceilings, each of which would take a parish meeting, together with big garden and lawn. They were tackling their problems vigorously. Norman with hair long and grey looked most distinguished. He had lost his shyness and was much more certain of himself.

Tuesday, Sept 18th - Norman showed me the church, undistinguished and low, as Norman appeared to be. In afternoon Eric drove us to Osborne and we tramped round. Not a distinguished thing in it. In evening a young wives’ club meeting in vicarage. Mary helped get food and after the meeting we went in but they were not a rewarding lot. Mary thought them rude and hostile.

Saturday, Sept 22nd - Stow. Harry’s. A customer told him his coffee was disgusting. He replied that he tried to please all sorts!

Thursday, Oct 4th - Dress shirt too tight. Fear apoplexy. Go up to Stow to get a new one. Row about attending Apple Tree dinner, accused of meeting Cherry and a good deal of gilt off the gingerbread of a return to my old college!

Friday, Oct 5th - Dinner good (Consommé Royale. Fillet of Sole Veronique. Roast Goose. Salad. Fresh peaches in Chianti. Scotch Woodcock. Dessert. Wines: Domaine de Vaumartin ‘71. Givry ‘69. Sandeman ‘60. Madeira Solera 1862. Barsac CH; LIot ‘67). 3 bishops, Exeter, Worcester and Chichester.

Saturday, Oct 20th - To get out of going to sherry party with the vice chancellor of Hong Kong, Cil drove me to concert at Tewkesbury.  Mixed choir, Handel, Bach, Mozart, Dowland. The vaulting over the altar was floodlit but the rest in dim light. I was very fine. I felt I really understood the difference between Gothic and Romanesque.

Monday, Oct 22nd - Nixon dismisses legal officials, threatened with impeachment. Cease fire in Sinai.

Thursday, Oct 25th - Cherry for coffee in Burford and then Oxford motel for lunch. While we were in Oxford an international crisis blew up and American forces all over the world put on a ‘third alert’. The nuclear strike force of bombers at Upper Heyford were alerted. In the eastern Med the two fleets US and USSR confronted one another. We do not know exactly what went on diplomatically but apparently the Russians wanted to use the excuse of continued fighting by the Arabs to extract a force trapped on the western side of the canal by the Israeli forces to establish a Russian army in the Middle East. This the Americans were determined at almost any cost to prevent. Kissinger spoke well in the Security Council.

Sunday, Oct 28th - Father died in October 1940. I wonder what would strike him most about our life today, 1973, if he came back. Certainly television and I expect the telephone with subscriber trunk dialling. The changes in transport by air, the motorway, the long distant coach. The cost of rail travel and the disappearance of the handsome and carefully cleaned and polished locomotive for the dirty huge diesels. Eating and drinking habits, the deep freezer, the cost of meat, no longer sirloin and legs of mutton, the vast output of chickens which are no longer a luxury, the fashion in drinks and coffee, wines no longer rare in England, the decimal coinage, the new postage, the use of credit cards. Atomic energy. Oil heating and space exploration. Trousers for women (he always maintained these were illegal).

Tuesday, Oct 30th - A ceasefire is working though it is pretty ropey inside the town of Suez where the troops are cheek by jowl.  The Arabs attacked without warning north from Syria and east across Suez. In the north they nearly succeeded in getting into Israel but a great tank battle (more tanks than at Alamein!) took place on the Golan Heights, which the Israelis won and began  to move towards Damascus. Relieved in the north, they then  transferred their armour to Suez, where they had been on the defensive, crossed the canal and turning south surrounded the Egyptian 3rd Army on the other side of the canal and cut their communications and supplies from Egypt. The Arabs facing defeat applied to the Russians, who proposed to send in troops. This however the US vetoed and stood to arms in Europe, in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. The Russians backed down and the Americans forced the victorious Israelis very reluctantly to forego their victory.

Thursday, Nov 1st - To Cheltenham. Took bedroom lock to get key and was asked by Mary if I was trying ‘to lock her out’. She seemed keener to go by bus and then it turned out she believed I was going to desert her and go off with C. I had no intention of doing so and it had never crossed my head but because she guessed that I had met C in Burford for coffee on Tuesday the wildest fears and imaginings filled mind and all the way driving to Cheltenham she expounded on my unreliability, perfidy, etc etc.

Monday, Nov 5th - London by train. Found Con at Maggie Jones at 12.30 and we had a most amusing lunch. White wine and mackerel. After lunch slightly tight, we got a taxi to the National Gallery where we searched because of Irish bombers. To amazement of black attendants, I knelt before Piero Madonna.

Sunday, Nov 11th - Armistice Day. Sunny but very cold. We looked at the Cenotaph. The programme was very imaginatively done with shots of Cassino, Arnhem, Cambrai, Coventry, and Cologne and many of the gravestones and wide scattered cemeteries. I was very moved and wept. Mind goes back to 1918, London crowds, noise, dancing in the backstreets, St Paul’s and bus home to Walthamstow.

Tuesday, Nov 13th - Princess Anne and the Captain on tele last night. A most unattractive girl who talks in clipped upper class voice and uses “let’s face it” and “I mean” continually. Amusing telecast tonight. Preparations for the wedding. Cleaning the abbey, mending the copes, the Chapter in session in the Jerusalem chamber, the choir, Ladies Hairdresser, Wedding Dress,  army cook making cake, grooming the horses, flag making and finally Moss Bros fitting out customers from the vast stock of uniforms. It concluded with the Archbishop spluttering and stuttering about Christian marriage and the Dean saying a few smooth words which included what seemed to be a plea for a more lenient attitude to divorce!

Wednesday, Nov 14th - A sunny morning. About 11 went to Vi’s as we wanted to see the pageantry in colour. The colour was good and well worth seeing, the scarlet coats of the military, the bride and groom, the gold of the state coaches with the white horses in silver hardness, the long white silk dress of the bride and the clergy in gorgeous copes of cloth of gold. The Duke and Prince Charles in naval uniform, the women in electric blue. The Dean spoke the introduction, which he had memorised - the only one who had - the Archbishop married them with the usual stuttering and mumbling.

There were no Irish bombs or other incidents but noticed the police faced the crowds. The pickpockets had a busy morning, 30 people were robbed and 14 arrested. There were 291 horses in the procession and a cleansing squad with brushes and spades got busy in the wake. They were cheered. The crowds along the route, 45,000, were less than expected. You could see so much more by staying home and looking at your set.

Thursday, Nov 15th - Tom Armstrong came to lunch on his way to the Musicians’ Home near Hereford.  He had had pneumonia and pleurisy in January. Next he had to have a prostate operation and then a car accident in France had produced diabetes. The last two ills had cleared up but he was very gloomy about the horrors of old age and said he thought there was much to be said for euthanasia.

Wednesday, Nov 20th - Got two gallons of petrol from garage - rationing by garages and petrol coupons not before Christmas because of strain on post offices which have to distribute them.

Thursday, Nov 22nd - Off by 9.56. Picked up Cherry who seemed very tired at Reading. Paddington taxi to Kensington. Lunch at Maggie Jones, steak and kidney and Stilton, a litre of red wine between us. Taxi to Westminster Abbey, up to east end then by cloister to museum with funeral effigies etc, into Dean’s Yard. Parliament Square, new fine figure of Churchill, staggered into Charing Cross Hotel for tea and biscuits. Then taxi to Paddington, back by 6.15, but at Kingham had no torch and could not find car, so had to grope my way to O’Hearn Garage and get a young man with torch.

Sunday, Nov 25th - Michael Collard to lunch. Many tales of the Piers Comprehensive School from which one gathers too big and majority oppressed minority who had some standard of behaviour and politeness, sixth forms distant and ineffective, staff spent much time on organisation.

Thursday, Nov 29th - Petrol ration book issued at Stow post office - back to 1940!

Sunday, Dec 2nd - Bitter cold, white frost. Went along to Mrs Coombes, Hall secretary, a rude woman, kept me standing in kitchen, full of complaints and grouses. Wish I could give up chairmanship. Spent afternoon in bed with Mary.

Thursday, Dec 13th - Cheltenham, three seats for magnificent  Messiah. Large chorus and good hall. Much enjoyed it. Out and back with Cil who had never heard it all and did not know you stood for the Hallelujah chorus.

Monday, Dec 17th - Today 26,000 miners no overtime, coal cut by 40%, 29,000 train drivers no overtime, 18,000 power engineers no out of hours working, 30,000 in all,  but no sign of government giving way. This afternoon a winter budget cutting government expenditure and cutting credit, including Barclay Cards. Examination of budget tonight. Denis Healey excellent, Maudling poor. Why not pay miners to cut coal instead of Sheiks to buy oil? Why not make miners and exception and subsidize food prices to take steam out of wage demands?

Wednesday, Dec 19th - Kathy no heat or light in shop, only to open three days. Graham said Cowley will probably open five days one week and two the next.

Saturday, Dec 22nd - Is civilization cracking up? Power goes, electricity goes, trains go, heat goes, can’t heat houses or water. Will private cars become obsolete? It all becomes too much trouble to battle on - cf the Roman civilization - feel like St Augustine at Hippo.

Christmas Day, 1973 - Collected flowers: Rose, Christmas Rose, Winter Jasmine, Daphne, Chimonanthus, Winter Sweet,  Viburnum, Campanula, Thrift, Prunus, unknown small pink flower, Hazel Catkins (Indoors or porch: Xmas roses, Daffodils, Azalea, red, pink, white Cyclamen, Paper-white narcissi, Yellow narcissi, Geraniums, White hyacinth in pot).

The day was damp and foggy, but not raining. Really hardly like to listen to the news, shooting in Torquay, sex crime in Reading, bombs in London and Maidenhead and Northern Ireland. Old people dead for lack of heat, children in care, etc.

Lunch; Turkey (frozen), bread sauce, sprouts, roast potatoes, Christmas pudding and brandy sauce. Then to sleep through Queen’s speech. Queen, said Mary, spoke in the throw away upper crust vice of the hunting field. Hilary rang up from Denmark just before lunch. He was cheerful and said you could now dial straight through to England. I spoke to Nicholas, who had been skating, and Mary to Lise.

Boxing Day - Mice eating crocus shoots. Set traps and catch one only.

Friday, Dec 28th - Stow to buy better mousetraps. Catch two. Busy eating young crocus, but don’t like snowdrops.

Saturday, Dec 29th - Caught one more mouse and two great tits.

Monday, Dec 31st - Went into drinks next door and found Sylvia, Graham’s new wife, knew all the Adlestrop villagers, including Miss Birch, as had been brought up in Oddington.

Did not see the New Year in.

1973  a year if violence, high-jacking, taking of hostages, kidnapping, bombs and explosions - terrorists from the Palestinians in the near east, the I.R.A and protestant extremists in N. Ireland, and now with parcel bombs in London itself.

The second half of this year saw another Israeli-Arab war, the cutting off of oil to Europe, and and a series of electricity and coal crises in England. We end up with a three day working week and perhaps some chance of a general election in the new year.

During the year we have become more dependent for entertainment on television on which there have been some excellent series of which the best was Bronovski’s Ascent of Man.

Our marriage seems to be standing up to the strains to which it has been subjected.

Christmas cards: Topographical 4, Nature 21, Religious 29, Charities 9, Misc 2, Total 64.