President de Klerk and Nelson Mandela with their eventual Nobel Peace Prizes
President de Klerk and Nelson Mandela with their eventual Nobel Peace Prizes

Canvassing in Bury and erecting poster boards with Jack Taylor’s boy on the very sunny and warm Eve of Poll and then helping them to complete their Polling Day Organisation, thanking the family offering their house as our local Committee Room before noticing the boards now missing in Great Paxton. Nationally, the Tories bracing themselves for losses of seats and councils but hoping to hold on to their "Flagships" where very low Poll Tax levels have been set and supported by central government grants.

Released US hostage, Frank Reed, speaks of having recently seen UK hostages John McCarthy and Brian Keenan; President de Klerk and Nelson Mandela start talks on the ending of Apartheid and The Bank of England injected £250million of extra liquidity into the City of London yesterday as robbers held a city messenger at knife-point and made off with certificates of deposit worth £292million! Gilt-edged stocks are at a cyclical low with no buy recommendations

A warm night and a warm day to follow, with the heat of the air and sun quite exhausting. After tending the conservatory and fish, I went over to Bury with Michael Pope to do some canvassing with Carole Crompton. We canvassed a number of the roads, particularly concentrating on the potential sites for poster-boards as the village of Bury has got very few up compared with Wistow. We worked hard in the hot weather until quite late, before leaving Carole to carry on in the afternoon. I dropped of Michael, came home and made a few plans for election day before leaving for Cambridge to collect another 100 posters for Carole. I then drove straight back to Warboys and got Jack Taylor and his son to help me make up another dozen or so poster boards, pasting on the new posters in the process.

** PRESS "Read More" BELOW for the complete story **

I then took Jack's boy with me, loaded up the boards and took off for Bury to collect some more I had got stored there. Trouble was, I had got the boards sticking out of the back of the Range Rover and I had forgotten to secure the tailgate with the lever. It fell down, shooting the boards all over the road! This was the second accident that I have had this year with the boards and I must try to be more careful. Luckily nobody was hurt and the boards were not too damaged. I had brought along the spare posters and the paste and, as the weather was not wet, I could paste extra copies over the damaged ones as we erected them and they soon dried. We erected a few in Bury on the way to collect Carole and then more once we had got there. We then used up the balance in Wistow which by this time was full of poster boards! After this, I went back to Warboys and I helped Jack Taylor complete his Polling Day Organisation by delivering Telling Instructions and then dropped in to see the family who had kindly agreed to let us use their house for the Committee Room tomorrow. It was quite late before I got home, and I noticed that certain of Percy's boards were missing from Great Paxton again late in the evening. I spoke to both Percy and Sally this evening and ascertained that they are both in good organisational shape for tomorrow.

The news on the eve of Election Day is of the Tories bracing themselves for losses of seats and councils but hoping to hold on to their "Flagships" where very low Poll Tax levels have been set and supported by central government grants. After the release of the US hostage, Frank Reed, he speaks of having recently seen UK hostages John McCarthy and Brian Keenan on Saturday. This puts even more pressure on the UK government who are criticised for not doing enough to get them released.  In South Africa, talks are taking place between President de Klerk and Nelson Mandela on the ending of Apartheid which Mandela hails as "a step towards solving the country's problems". He will still not see Thatcher until July and remains publicly critical of her for easing sanctions too soon. The Bank of England injected £250million of extra liquidity into the City of London yesterday as robbers held a city messenger at knife-point and made off with certificates of deposit worth £292million! Although these are bearer certificates, they are serialised and so cannot be cashed or used as collateral now that all the banks have been warned. The Bank of England has agreed to cover any losses by the firm. On other economic news and the threat of Tory election losses, gilt-edged stocks are at a cyclical low with no buy recommendations!