Rock Hudson in his early days
Rock Hudson in his early days

A windy day which was busy for me after a shopping trip to St Neots sketching and photographing the old well before contractors start filling in and building over it as Kinnock clashes with Scargill at the Labour Party Conference and Princess Anne visits Liverpool and Toxteth and Gorbachev meets Mitterrand in Paris and the death of film star Rock Hudson from Aids prompts the British blood fusion service o start testing donors

A good night’s sleep, but when I woke to my morning tea, my back was still rather painful – if a bit better than yesterday. Down to my toast and fruit juice with the family and then, hearing vehicles outside at 8.00am, I go out in my dressing gown to investigate. The skip contractor is changing the full skip for an empty one and there is a major delivery taking place of building materials. Cement and mortar, building and facing brackets, and concrete building blocks had all arrived. I helped sort out where to put them and then went back in for a shower, wash and to dress. Diana arrives back from taking Debbie to school and we start to do our chores. Della ‘helps’ me with the doves and ducks (only two eggs) but we then break off for a trip to St Neots. We start with a coffee in the rendezvous and then walk to Currys together to see the appliances. We decide on an upright fridge/freezer of British origin, but all of the microwave ovens seem to be Japanese. Then Diana does her shopping as I look around Shaws auction rooms.

Nothing of interest and the rooms rather empty and so I look in on the Priory antiques shop and buy the 1986 Millers Antique Price Guide. Home and then a bread roll lunch with ice cream to follow. To the office and a reasonably productive afternoon reading journals and getting up to date. I keep my answering machine on and do not return calls from Bill Barrett and Chris Shelton. It seems that there was a poorly attended LAN meeting today and they want me to phone round – a chore which does not appeal to me at the moment. In fact I am trying to summon up the motivation to finish my preparation for the Financial Times conference, but am discouraged by neither John Lamb nor the organisers coming up with a contractor to prepare my 35mm slides. Mail today also included several more kitchen brochures, which only serve to confirm the validity of our original choice of Smallbone. The BMMG minutes are received at last, with plenty of action items for me as well. Back to the house foundations and the builders finish excavating the pit and obtain the agreement of the Building Control office to concrete directly upon the remains. Before the arrival of the Readymix cement lorry at 8.30am tomorrow morning, I decided to photograph the excavations and take measurements, noting down the results for posterity as follows:- The structure, which seems to be a type of pit or well, or pumping station inlet, is situated beneath the site of the hall; soon to connect the two halves of The Hayling View and in a position that was formerly between them. It is in the form of a square 3 feet plus 2 or 3 inches inside dimension and formed by stone walling about a foot thick. These stones are laid in a dressed and dry formation average 18 inches long each and 4-6 inches thick so that each is about 3/4 cu foot and too heavy to lift easily. They seem to be made of a dark red granular substance – probably a sandstone. The top of this stone lined pit was built up with brickwork of yellow and pink edging and then the top capped with a shallow arched brick roof. At the centre of this cover was a square shallow brick tile about 9 inches square. Most of the principal structure was demolished, dug out and will then be covered with concrete tomorrow. The bricks were disposed of, but the stone is being retained for the Koi Carp pool rockery. When 6 & 7 Willow Close were built the houses seem to have been positioned to stand each side of this sandstone pit, so that its removal could be avoided. The pit stone was nevertheless partially under No7 and just beneath the edge of its foundation (this foundation starts 17 brick courses below the house’s damp proof course and the stonework top is a further 18 inches below that. The centre of the pit (full of debris) was not excavated below the top 2 / 3 courses of the 4-6 inch sandstone. I showed Marilyn the pit and then, in the failing light, fed the ducks and put them away. Inside then to get Daniel started on his homework and to write up my journal before the TV news. Coverage of today’s Labour Party Conference and the delegates split between Neil Kinnock and Arthur Scargill on reimbursement of the miners over their losses on strike action. Kinnock is standing up to the left wing and militant tendencies and, although he marginally lost the voting decisions, because the pro-vote was less than the 2/3rds, it does not become official Labour Party policy. Princess Anne visited Liverpool and Toxteth today in spite of the recent troubles. The unemployed have no grievances with the Royal Family. The victim of the police shooting, Mrs Groce, is paralysed from the waist down. USSR Premier Gorbachev goes to France today and meets French President Mitterrand. Rock Hudson, the actor, died with his Aids disease today and it seems he was a homosexual in spite of his macho image. The British Blood Transfusion Service have decided to screen blood donors from a week’s time. The weather forecast is for patches of rain tonight, but more persistent showers tomorrow afternoon on what is due to be a pretty windy day.