Family day in Cambridge with me getting a University Library readers ticket and researching my Harraden painter’s life and times before home to find a serious field and tree fire opposite. This as Thatcher is now totally isolated over South Africa and now makes cuts to English schools, the IRA threatens further contractors who rebuild Ulster police and security buildings after their bombings but North Sea crude rises $4 per barrel to $15 following OPEC cuts to their joint production from 20m to 17m barrels a day
Woke to find Di gone to get the drinks and she brought them in shortly. A better night, showered, shaved, dressed and down to find the others already started breakfast. All soon ready and I get the car out to allow Di to get the children loaded, whilst I feed the doves. They seem to be favouring the larger seeds at the moment. A good car journey to Cambridge, with the recent roadworks now a thing of the past. To Marshalls in Cherry Hinton Road, where we left the Jaguar for service for the day and then walked to the town centre on a fine, sunny morning, if a bit cool. Went to Eaden Lilleys for coffee and met Di’s parents there to chat about our enjoyment of the boating holiday, before I went off to the Cambridge Reference Library and the rest went shopping.
A long wait this morning for the admissions officer, but eventually I secured a years pass for access at will, though it cost me £4.00 and I had to remind them of my being Charles Jackson’s son-in-law when they queried the lack of a letter of introduction. Not much time to see any books after this, as I hurried back to The Copper Kettle to meet the family for lunch. Too crowded, even before 12.00noon, with tourist parties and so I took them round the corner to Shades and had the comfort and peace of an expensive restaurant. Then I gave Daniel and Debbie the money to see the film ‘ET’ again and went back to the library for several productive hours cataloguing Harraden’s pictures. Rendezvoused with the family outside the cinema, taxi to Marshalls and drove home to find a straw & tree fire in the field opposite, so had to call the fire brigade to put it out. A nice family swim, as our pool struggles up to temperature and then my chores. News tonight is of the complete isolation of Thatcher within both the Commonwealth and amongst British party leaders. She is condemned today in public speeches by Ghandi of India, Kaunda of Kenya and Mugabe of Zimbabwe; Australia’s Fraser and New Zealand also join UK’s Owen, Steel and Kinnock in distancing themselves from her bloody-minded stand against effective South African sanctions. Meanwhile, SA has replied with plans for a levy on goods from other African states passing through the territory, because of ‘the attitude of two of the states at the London meeting, Zambia and Zimbabwe’. The IRA is widening its threats against firms who aid the Ulster police and security in supplying and rebuilding the army and police stations. They have released a list of firms deemed ‘legitimate targets’ and the demand that, to protect themselves, they must publicly renounce any future contractual relationships. OPEC’s 13 countries have decided to cut joint production from 20 to 17 million barrels/day and North Sea crude goes up in price $4 to $15 and the £ sterling with it by $2c. The Government is planning to remove over 1 million school places because of falling rolls and it could lead to hundreds more schools closing to save £750 million. Princess Anne has had her 1st success as a ‘flat’ jockey, after 12 previous attempts.