Working and playing croquet outside at the start of a brighter spell before and after welcoming BOTB/DTI executives visiting to discuss German export prospects for British computers and taking them to lunch at The Anchor in Tempsford as 4,000 jobs are axed at the BR Swindon workshops and US police burn in Philadelphia delivery burn 12 members of a black armed cult
A sound night’s sleep for me, but Diana had trouble breathing and spent the night downstairs. Awake to my morning tea and eventually persuaded Debbie to bring my paper to me. Breakfast of toast and honey and, after completing the paper, up, washed and dressed in old clothes. Out to the doves and pleased to see the chick with even more white feathers and both parents feeding it as usual. 13 eggs from the ducks and I clean out the duck house and give them fresh straw for the first time in a long while. Then to the car and I hose it down with the brush attachment and shake out the mats. Time to clear up the garden and carry some rubbish over to the old plot for burning, before back to the car to leather and wipe it dry. To the office by 10.00am and to clear it up; putting the radio control kit away and carrying the heron upstairs. I clear my desk and sort out some BMMG brochures and information for my visitors. Back to the house to get changed, then off by car to the station to collect Chris Bradshaw of the BOTB/DTI, and the Chief Executive of the British office in Stuttgart, Wilf Seidler. Back to the office, coffee, and the chance to exchange views and information on the export prospects for British microcomputer manufacturers to Germany. Off to a lunch at the Anchor in Tempsford. I drop off my guests at St Neots market square to catch their taxi for Cambridge and their next visit. Home and time in the office reading the mail and returning a couple of phone calls. Home then to collect Debbie from school and play with her and then croquet with Daniel and her when he got home.
Tea of rolls and butter and then to tend the birds. News tonight of the identification of the Bradford football victims and of evidence a cigarette end may have caused the fire. A requiem mass for those injured and bereaved and a minutes silence before tonight’s European Cup Winners Cup Final, before Everton beat Rapide Vienna 3-1. The Home Secretary, Leon Brittain, makes a key-note speech to the Police Federation and gets a mixed response. British Rail Engineering are cutting 4000 jobs on reorganisation of the workshops, which has come as a shock, and the numbers may eventually be more. Swindon is closing entirely, even after previous reorganisations and comes on the 150th anniversary of the Great Western Railway. Two policemen were killed in a crash of the revolutionary observation plane, Optica, within 48 hours of its delivery to Hampshire police. This is the one we saw at Old Warden display last summer. In Philadelphia, 12 bodies have been brought out of a building after a block of buildings were destroyed in a fire and explosion, deliberately caused by the police in a disastrous attempt to evict an armed black cult. At the Manteaux TV festival, Paul Daniel won the gold medal with the Magic Show and Spitting Image with its puppets won the bronze. High pressure is beginning to dominate the weather scene and dry, bright weather is forecast for the next couple of days and much warmer than of late.