Family shopping day with press and Industry phone calls before sending Freda the £7,000 she needed for her daughter before falling out with Diana and staying up to hear of the 1 day rail strike being planned, the Arms talks making progress and the UK tyre industry collapsing
A bit of a lay in and awake to morning tea and the paper at 8.00am. I managed to finish the paper before a delayed breakfast of toast and honey. In competition with the children to the bathroom after and washed and dressed in time to get to the office by 9.15am. I type a few more letters and then return for coffee at 10.30am and we leave together for a shopping expedition to Bedford at 10.45am. Joan arrives to do the cleaning and Dad tends the doves and ducks. Both are very hungry on a frozen morning and the ducks have laid 5 eggs. We stick together in Bedford and look at C&A, Debenhams and other department stores having sales. We try clothes for Daniel and end up buying a pair of trousers for him and a jumper for Di. I also get a teasmade on special sale offer, which Daniel and I think will help Di get the morning drinks.
I treat them to lunch at Debenhams, Di and me having fried plaice and the children having rolls and butter and chocolate cake. Home after and I put the ducks away and stack up with logs before setting off again for Papworth. Mum is still doing well, but is sore and short of breath. She is a bit down at the moment with the discomfort, but that is regarded as normal at this stage. Strange to hear her Mitral valve ticking quite loudly, but she will get used to that. I leave her with a comedy book to read (The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 12) and return home for tea and to the office by 4.00pm. I take a few calls from Digital Research for a seminar invitation, Tessa Curtis of Computer Weekly on the BMMG seminar and EIU about the Informatics daily bulletin on Prestel/telecom gold. Also to complete letters to Freda and Vinters so as to allow me to draw the £7,000 cheque and send it off for her house completion. Home to tea of stilton and biscuits, but Di feels ill with a sick headache and decided not to eat. I think she has been eating sandwiches earlier, but doesn’t admit it. After tea, Daniel and I to the office where we prepare the Futaba radio control for the Progress racing car. It seems we now need a connector and charging unit for the Progress before we can continue. Until quite late, and after Daniel has left, addressing more of the gift calendars and I finish this task at last by 9.15pm. Home to a bedtime drink and to put the plug on the teasmade. After a trial we make to carry the unit to the bedroom, but Diana and I fall out on the question of where it sits and who operates it. A silly thing, but we go to bed in silence and, not being able to sleep, I rise to poke life into the fire and update my journal by its warmth. News tonight of a planned 1 day rail strike next week in support of NUR/ASLEF members, who assisted the miner’s strike. The arms talks end after two days with agreement to hold negotiations aimed at reducing existing arms and stopping space weapons. Michelin are cutting a further 2600 tyre jobs, mostly at Stoke-on-Trent. They follow Dunlop, Firestone and Goodyear’s example as employment in the UK tyre industry has fallen from 44,000 in 1975 to less than 20,000 now.