Taking the argument direct to the DTI Ministry
Taking the argument direct to the DTI Ministry

To Hunstman’s of Saville Row to be measured for my new suite before dropping the family off at the train station and continuing on to Bressenden Place for the the DTI meeting about LAN standards with Dr Chris Shelton

Up early and Diana and I get ready with the children. A breakfast of melon and toast, which marks the start of a more slimming day. The children safely off to school and a few phone calls made, we set off to drop Diana’s car at St Neots Station and drive on in to London stopping for petrol on the way. Eventually to park at a jammed meter outside Huntsman’s of Saville Row where we go in to select materials and order my first Saville Row suit. I am to use it for special occasions and, even with a 10% cash pre-payment discount, it will cost £880. We choose from a surfeit of materials and I am measured by the separate trouser and jacket tailors attended by the sales assistant. There will be several fittings, the first of which will be in about a month’s time. We leave the car and walk on to a department store to eat a salad lunch and try to buy Daniella a bonnet. Both Di and Della are still full of cold, which is a worry. Then to High and Mighty to buy a smart new raincoat and two shirts, being unhappy with the fit of the trousers off the peg. I weighed about 13st 10lbs this morning and I would really like to be about 13st, where weight and leg length would be easier and movement better. Time passing, I dropped off Diana by car to Kings Cross Station only a few minutes to spare for her 14.06 train and then drove on in torrential rain to Victoria Station for my 3.30pm Department of Trade and Industry meeting at Bressenden Place.

30 mins early, I arrived with D R H Davies of the IT Standards Unit and discovered that he also works at Bristol Telecom. We wonder whether he, too, is on secondment from them, which would make even more difficult the situation with regard to the DTI approving/rejecting the BT licence application. A poor LAN meeting with Nigel Smith a half-hour late and Chris Shelton totally unprepared. I press for draft written reports and we meet again in two weeks when we should have received them and had a chance to study summaries of his interviews and précis of LAN definitions and requirements. We break up and Nigel and I have a few teas together in a local café and discuss the Industry and the LAN initiative. The new IBM product and price announcement of the PCAT are a particular threat and the winding down of the CCTA will open competition in the public as well as private sectors for British manufacturers. I give him a lift back to his car and drive on home to Little Paxton. An evening relaxing and listening to the news. The Bundesbank intervened on the foreign exchanges, selling dollars and the dollar fell at last. At the Liberal Conference, David Steel won his 10 min oration and the delegates with his customary fine closing speech at the end of a long week.