A fine, warm but very busy month during which others might be suffering with natural catastrophes and other reverses, but my family overcame illness to enjoy our developing riverside gardens and leisure activities whilst watching the building plans being documented in detail and then starting to come to fruition. Progress made in computer industry affairs with network standards being developed and supported and personally I could collect my Grant of Arms from the College of Arms in recognition of this but the Thatcher government austerity and control of local government finance led to riots in Liverpool and the heavy-handed policing they encourage after the Miners’ strike caused further riots in Handsworth and then Brixton which Lord Scarman attributed to discrimination and poverty but eventually Thatcher agrees to Un sanctions against South Africa but only after a series of police state atrocities and violence towards civil rights demonstrators.
And so ends the month of September. After the poor windy and wet weather of July and August, it has proved a fine sunny and warm month; restoring our confidence in the home climate and recharging our batteries. It often happens that an Indian summer follows the poorer mid-summer season but it was a month of hurricanes and earthquakes that killed tens of thousands of people. My summit of achievement was collecting my Grant of Arms from the College of Arms as a scroll. The builders are at work and, despite their problems, are on schedule for an early December completion, which will make this Christmas a pleasure and allow us to extend more hospitality to our relatives. My garden plan is complete and well presented; the purchase of Bill’s plot is in hand, and by deciding on our kitchen, we have set in motion the task of furnishing our new interior. This now has to extend to the hall and stairs decoration and also the livery for our bathrooms; not to mention the lounge and dining room furniture. It will be most absorbing making house decisions in the company of the builders and, although my office is now sorted again, it is difficult to get down to paper work with so much good weather and activity about.
Bill’s plot came with a Wendy House (‘Bill’s Shed’) for Debbie and Amy to play in and Bill’s day boat which was ideal for Daniel and friends, once I had found an engine spare and fixed it in preparation for his first solo boat trip. Unfortunately, I was soon to get a Police call about Daniel and his crew on board Aquabean late at night in Huntingdon! As a result of acquiring more riverside plots, studying the deeds and meeting Mrs Laurence Davis with Marilyn to hear her recollection of the Haylings and the wartime fires in the village, I start typing up my history of Little Paxton Haylings. We start enjoying our riverside gardens more, with some eating out providing barbequed hamburgers for all and we had a relaxing Sunday accordingly, and some time sitting out and enjoying our riverside barbeque for the family and our friends. Landscaping had ben a priority with many visits to Bikerdykes and Willington Garden Centres, cutting back shrubs, researching games lawns designs and I end up drawing my overall landscape in The Hayling View plan and framing it. The family is well by the end of the month but we have all recovered from tummy upsets, bad backs etc. Diana and Della became very sick and took to their bed, but Debbie helped , made the breakfast and her own packed lunch, Pat takes her to school and then Norma and Charles come over to help us then but a few days later, we had a diabolical night with both Debbie and Della coming in to see us ill. Debbie copes with her difficult teacher, Mrs McFarlone, very well and Della is fast learning to communicate, wanting walks around my new garden paths and loves her Daddy now she is used to me. Daniel does not seem to worry (half as much as me) but we a bad night worrying after his bike accident and at his missed school work, but is genuinely improving and had been promoted to the top Physics and Chemistry sets at school but this was only after me constantly helping and encouraging him with his homework. Daniella and Debbie were always wanting to play but had to be kept safe as the builder started demolition of walls etc but were delayed when they discovered the well between the two houses and had to stop work but builders’ manager and architect attend to help plan the building work. I then lead the quest to find the right real oak kitchen for us and home in on Smallbone, of Devizes. I am now somewhat distracted again from my computer industry work. The government is deeply unpopular over its economic policies, with riots to show for it, but refuses to change but organise a very successful and significant BMMG LAN meeting in White Lion Street where STC/ICL and ACT/Apricot were on board with other members and agreement was reached to get the proposals written up and for me to brief the press and there followed an industry dinner at Olympia for the PCW awards and then I was busy planning my speech to the Financial Times conference. Also a visit to The Old Bailey and the office of Export IT on a hot and humid day for unsatisfactory AGM and Council meetings as we discover that their government funding, and thus their future, are now ended. Also to the London Tower Hotel for a BMMG meeting on the LAN project so I was not idle on their behalf. News from my former colleagues: Peter King and Derek Weatherby have departed Kode and John Lamb is busy fighting fires and moving with Kode. Thatcher’s government were experiencing new lows of unpopularity with two riots in the month and several strikes. In Britain, we had to endure The Spike Island prison riot in Ireland and Russia expelling 25 British diplomats in retaliation for our expulsion of 25 of their spies after we had got that KGB chief defection and had ousted their spies. The issues of working people were to the fore, Maxwell was muscling in the on the NGA influence in Fleet Street and the Labour Party and the unions were locked in many union disputes but thankfully, the TUC works out a deal to prevent the AEUW expulsion. There was trouble brewing as Labour’s Kinnock is overruled by his party about supporting the miners who have been fined by Thatchers but the TUC votes otherwise and then Thatcher surcharges Liverpool and Lambeth Councillors who resist her austerity and central control and a full scale riot ensued in Handsworth where claims of police brutality vie with tales of hooliganism and culminate with the discovery of the bodies of the postmaster and his brother . Thatcher visits Newcastle after comments about ‘moaning minnies’ in response to the unemployment which rose to 20% in Northern Cities. Pay rises of 8 ½ % were offered to 1 ½ million local authority workers in defiance of government guidelines and at first NALGO falling short of striking over government interference but then Liverpool was paralysed by a 24-hour strike with schools closed and a rally at The Town Hall. Then another ‘ accidental’ police shooting sparks a Brixton march, demonstration and riots, blamed on discrimination and poverty by Lord Scarman and outrage then focused on the police killing of a suspect’s mother with the family refused access to the investigation. At least police victim Cherry Groce’s son is allowed bail after surrendering to tend to her as she recovers. The eventual official French government confession for the Greenpeace ship sinking but the agents who went public were then arrested for ‘treachery’. In other unrest, Muslims throw a grenade into a Greek resort and Syrian-backed militia attack Libya’s capital Tripoli with 200 dead and 1,000 injured but 5,000 demonstrate against neo-Nazism in Germany and the Soviets make major concessions in the arms talks with the US and a settlement now seems possible. Thatcher’s Tories appoint the controversial millionaire, Jeffrey Archer, as their Chairman, despite accusations of financial malpractice but her International stance on South Africa saw her the last to hold out against sanctions . The deteriorating South African security and finance had the rand collapsing, rubber bullets and tear gas being used to break up South African rallies with one schoolchild again killed. South African authorities then closed 500 coloured schools as ‘seething hotbeds of violence’ in the Western Cape as a further death occurs in South African police responses and schoolchildren are attacked with police wielding whips. Even Reagan then ponders over South African sanctions as the British Tory government rules them out despite US pleas. Thatcher holds out alone but, at last, joins the world in implementing EEC sanctions against South African brutality and apartheid. Homeland’ Blacks in South Africa are getting some land reforms but they want Nelson Mandela released who is now suffering from prostate and liver/kidney complaints. In another incident, South Africa used teargas to prevent a parade of blacks joining the funeral of a 10-year-old boy. Forces of nature ended the lives of tens of thousands of people this month and made homeless many more. Hurricane Helen hits New Orleans and an even bigger one, the third biggest hurricane this century, landed on the US Long Island coast but it was a long series of earthquakes, topping a Richter Scale 8 hitting Mexico killed thousands, with as many by the following 20ft tidal wave and then a second and third shock, the worst effect of which was the 700 who were crushed to death as a seven storey hospital collapses. Patients on the theatre table survived when the medical tams perished and they were still finding babies protected in their cots for the rest of the month when another 50sec tremor hit the recovery efforts hard making the death toll rise to 5,000 and may have reached 20,000. Closer to home, eight inches of rain in Glasgow release thousands of empty whisky casks on to the Clyde; a similar tragedy for the inhabitants of this hard-drinking city. As a sequel to tragedies past, marine explorers have found the wreck of the Titanic. In sport, Alain Prost wins the Monza Grand Prix and with it the Formula 1 title. Europe take control over the US with Sev Ballistiros helping Europe to our first Ryder Cup victory against the US in more than two decades and Barry McGuigan retains his featherweight title in Belfast.