This month marks the completion of two years of writing this diary and adjusting well to the outcome of selling Comart which was done at the right time now that the computer and electronics sector collapses in the UK. Also of moving on with my retirement and family priorities with Debbie and Della being lovely, Daniel overcoming his rebellious crisis to do well at exams and school work and me working towards retiring from my industry role to enjoy more property management and boating now that I am creating The Hayling View and enjoying a renovated boat. England suffers a European football ban and Thatcher ploughs on with more financial measures to cause divisiveness and hardship and lots of bombs and terrorist strikes rock the world but at home an IRA holiday bomb campaign is averted.
Thus ends the month of June and with it the second year of my journal. During this longer period I have completed my business career, realised a fortune, and settled well into my new life of leisure, family interests, investment management, and also retained an interest in the computer industry in which I had been involved all my working life. I am a regular speaker and participant in industry events but I now plan my exit from that. I could not have organised it better, nor imagined that the transition should have been so much without problem. In more recent weeks, we have successfully completed the purchase of the neighbouring house, 7 Willow Close and obtained the necessary consents for its connection to our existing house, No 6. We have also negotiated the purchase of the riverside ground opposite the new house and, although we have yet to exchange contracts, we regard this as a formality and have already cleared the land of excess bushes and vegetation. Our health is good and the family well. I have nearly completed arrangements for the children’s inheritance, which gives the girls £125,000 each at 25 and Daniel the same, but also, via a discretionary trust, the custody for care of our family inheritance of the house, the forests and the rest of my estate. I am taking him up to Scotland next week to see the forestry plantation.
I have now moved my office from 39 Gordon Road to No 7 Willow Close and am letting from Tuesday the old house, partly furnished, to a USAF serviceman and his wife for £210 per month, on a short-hold lease. This will keep it utilised, but secure it for future use if needed. It will also allow me to use the adjacent riverside garden as moorings and a workshop area, which may eventually be connectable to my others. My parents are fine and returned from their trip to Cornwall and glad to be back. They found the Butterfield household with too many shortcomings for their liking. Debbie is growing prettily and happily up, with many friends, wide interests and success at school and Della begins to stand and may walk soon. Della does, however, have a lot of noise to make and is quite an active baby. Daniel is more independent on his boating, taking an interest in dinghies and outboards and seems to be over his rebellious crisis and begins to do better at school and I have helped him greatly with his maths and physics, which he now enjoys. We await his exam results soon and hope he will be in good sets for the two year run up to his ‘O’ Level examinations, which is important in view of his future planned responsibilities. I have arranged our investment and financial affairs as well as I can, disposing of another £100,000 of Diana’s Kode shares before the critical decline of the stock exchange and electronics/hi-tech sector. Clive Sinclair is bailed out by Robert Maxwell but Olivetti are set to back out of supporting Acorn. Bristow declines to buy Westland helicopters, which seals their fate. I am more satisfied with the BMMG now that we have had a meeting and Bill Unsworth and John Marshall are taking over more responsibilities that were falling to me. The chairmen, Nigel Smith and John Lamb, seem particularly distracted these days, which does not bode well. And so we move forward to the holiday season, with improving weather, and much to do on our lands of increased amenity. I am enjoying my collection of silver flatware and restoring my mahogany steamer chairs as well. Tess Jordon’s family hill burns down and need rebuilding. UEFA has banned English soccer teams despite the appeals process, Stanstead is planned as London’s Third Airport. UK customs seize £14m-worth of heroin and an IRA plan to bomb seaside resorts is thwarted with Torquay the first one saved. Thatcher’s government abandons the inter-party consensus on pensions and embarks upon some controversial welfare cuts with Child Benefit the main loser. A bomb explodes outside Syrian Embassy whilst Thatcher meets Israeli foreign minister and a TWA airliner is hi-jacked but, after one is killed, but the US hostages eventually find their way home. 325 die in another 747 crash incident but it later appears likely not to have been a bomb. A further bomb kills three in Frankfurt and another 75 in The Lebanon. Then 65 people die of cheese poisoning in the US as the unpasteurised milk, Mexico-style, breeds listeria bacteria.