A month of ice floods and storms but the crash of destruction of the US Shuttle Challenger shocked the world; but also of the fall in standing and near demise of the UK Prime Minister Thatcher who was found, with her colleague Leon Britten, to have lied to the House of Commons over the Westland Debacle. This on a day I was at Westminster on my last Committee meeting before resigning as leader of the British Computer Industry and now spend more time with my children. Thatcher presides over the collapse of the economy and, in particular, the death of the coal and steel industries and UK manufacturing as she officiates over the abolition of laws protecting working people and runs out of wise colleagues and starts laying plans for the Poll Tax! At home The Hayling View riverside mansion is largely complete with the swimming pool half excavated and Diana survives this stress and eye infections so caused and the children are now very happy to now occupy a building of space and play potential but my Mother suffering pain. The Anglo-French Channel Tunnel is agreed and The Royal Yacht Britannia assists in the evacuation of Aden as the Middle East is in crisis with Gadhafi threatening the West with more terrorism. South African crisis continued unabated
And so ends January (I am only just getting used to putting a ‘6’ on the end of the date and one month has gone by already); a month that started mild and wet with floods killing boys in pot-holes and culverts but then turned cold and icy so as to freeze our adjacent river Great Ouse which had previously been in flood. There was a terrible gale and storm later in the month killing four people and 30,000 chickens. My family and I are in good health – apart from a few colds. No sign of my back trouble and Diana has recovered from her sore eyes, after having had her contact lens appointment such that she now only wets her contact lenses with water. She successfully starts her slimming campaign and then does very well until the stress of the change and house alterations take their toll later in the month and she gives up and reverts to former eating behaviour. I also have concern with my Mother, who seems low in spirit and physique with her hip joint pain and she is not one to take these things easily.
Di’s parents have completed the sale of their villa in Menorca and are planning the spending of their £20K. It seems that the older folk today do not believe in passing on much by way of an inheritance. Our Hayling View building and conversion work drag on but we have a New Year’s Day open house for our friends, neighbours and relatives to see what we have achieved and they are impressed. We await reluctantly the moving of the kitchen to hall door and the swimming pool is half excavated, with the wet and windy weather giving every possibility of further upset for our neighbours because of all of the mess we are making. We entertain Daniel and Diana’s friends for meals in-between times (as I try not to be tantalised by Linda’s daring dress barely concealing her fascinating body). I make progress on my Hayling View security installation and hope the next month will see the more disruptive element of the house alterations and swimming pool excavations complete as I also aim to be back to my hobbies of genealogy, local history and landscaping the gardens. I do make a start on all of these. We welcome Nigel and Lynne Smith to tea after his recent heart attack and I take Nigel to visit the St Ives Antique Auction and then I respond with my opinions about his restoration of Hail Weston House when we visited there later. I was spending lots of time with the children minding Daniella (but not changing her nappy!) supervising Daniel’s homework and reading stories to Della and The Country Companion to Debbie, who now writes a journal of her own. She has also started Sunday School with her friend Amie and wants me to say Grace at meals! Daniel and Debbie with their friends maraud about The Hayling View which is now big enough (with multiple staircases and hiding places) to be ideal for Hide and Seek. I help Daniel through a crisis in the flood, as we install a new bilge pump pipe and he is able to re-float and restore the vessel happily and Daniel and I enjoy a trip to The London Boat Show on morning at Earls Court. This month I made a nostalgic visit to The Which Computer Show at the NEC but avoided too much industry contact and was not very impressed with the products and exhibits and then I finally sever my links with the computer industry and can now escape the constant rain of mail and computer journals. I have sold £1/2M-worth of gilts to facilitate my £1/2m CGT tax payment (after personal advice from Nicholas de Zoete from that famous family firm in the City of London) advice which was a big weight off my mind as well as the removal of a skewing factor on my investment pattern and I constantly monitor my investments so that we make best use of them. Diana and I have agreed that she should get her own bank, credit card account and allowance, so that she can spend as she pleases within limits. Elsewhere, this last month, there was a day of mourning and shock across the USA (and the world) affecting millions who were watching the Challenger Space shuttle demise live on television and saw the space rocket and persons die during the explosions and plunge to earth . In South Africa, conflict continued and Molly Blackburn, the leading white anti-apartheid campaigner, dies on a South African car ‘accident’ and Thatcher refuses to support international sanctions against the regime and the Westland’s European partner bid, The month has seen the crisis over the Westland helicopter company lead to two ministerial resignations and the final damage to Prime Minister Thatcher’s own credibility. Heseltine faces a huge challenge from the Westland Board and his Tory opponents but turns Westland into challenge to Thatcher herself and the matter is elevated to a drama with Heseltine the subject of the tyrant’s wroth. Lord Hanson emerged as the mysterious bidder sympathetic to Thatcher for 15% of Westland but the Westland Directors the directors fail to get their majority needed to hold off the European bid at first. Thatcher, who is also oblivious of the implications of abolishing the Metropolitan Councils, suffers Tory revolts in the Commons over raising Shire rates to rejuvenate inner cities and then has her silly road option for Channel Tunnel rejected as Anglo-French deal is finally signed for building the Channel Tunnel, as four Concordes fly splendidly overhead in formation to commemorate the event. The European Consortium complains that their bid for Westland is being ignored, and then admissions in the House followed that Leon Brittan had lied about not seeing the British Aerospace letter. He fights poorly for his reputation in the House of Commons and his career is dead in the water when tha matter goes ballistic with the DTI found to have leaked the letter which makes Leon Brittan culpable all along! I was there for fascinating radio coverage of Thatcher’s statement to Parliament where she admits that Leon Brittan made the leak on her authority and there followed a day of Leon Brittan’s much overdue resignation, resisted by Thatcher as it puts her own future in jeopardy. She is then in a very the difficult position as all of the most able ministers do not conform to her doctrinaire beliefs so she is lacking the advice of experienced colleagues who sympathise with her. She turns to Biffen to commence her ‘Poll Tax’ escapade, with my old friend Kenneth Baker carrying the poisoned chalice aloft. and then her fortress-like Molesworth plans are released . She survives poor Labour opposition from Neil Kinnock in the House of Commons on the day that I was there for my last PITCOM committee meeting only to be cut down in combined Tv interviews with journalists. There seems to many outstanding and unanswered questions and she may well be forced to eventually admit to even more irregularities in the way she runs the government. On the economic front too, the Tories dogmatic monetarist approach is officially buried and, with unemployment soaring to more than 3 ¼ million, it seems only a matter of time before there has to be some changes. Wall Street sustains record one day losses as the UK clearing banks cut their base rate by 1%, Sterling dives by 2cents and North Sea Oil prices drop below $20 per barrel as Thatcher now also has an economic crisis on her hands and a teachers strike is scheduled for the 6th February. However, there is no reprieve for the Gartcosh Steel processing mill and Group Lotus is lost to US owners as our industrial capacity is run down. Former opponents are dispirited and the very moderate James Prior retires from parliament and her best ally and confident, Sir Keith Joseph does so too. By now, the NCB has become so bloody-minded that it seeks to avoid the blame for underground fires in Leicestershire I have always believed in conventional post-war demand central economics and the only mystery to me is how the illusion of monetarism was sustained for so long. Commodore axe 230 jobs at their UK computer plant which vindicates my BMMG exclusively British membership approach. The Marquis of Blandford is jailed for possessing heroin and now the extensively armed police get into trouble as the policeman who shot infant John Shorthouse is eventually charged with manslaughter. By now, police are armed with sub-machine guns at Heathrow. Murdoch followed Eddie Shah and continued and won his battle against Fleet Street unions and the newspaper publishing industry will never be the same again but only after unions take him as he moves Fleet Street to Wapping behind barbed wire but he reaps the whirlwind and now has a strike on his hands but he successfully breaks it now that we have US-style union laws. There has been violent turmoil in The Lebanon and emerging fears of Libya’s Gadhafi being behind European airport attacks as he also threatens the USA. Western powers complain about Iranian searches of ships in the Gulf, Gorbachev extends the nuclear test pause and bad news emerges as a ransom of £2m is paid for the release of an Arab diplomat in London. The Royal Yacht Britannia aiding other vessels evacuating civilians from the beaches of Aden where Britannia hundreds of Britons from South Yemen need embarking and where 9,000 locals die in the civil war, There are futile attempts to start talks in The Middle East Army coup in Lesotho with Chief Jonathan deposed. The Orleans oil tanker collides with another ship and starts a fire storm that endangers nearby oil rigs. Three intrepid British Explorers complete the journey to The North Pole on foot. Halley’s Comet has been a bit of a non-event so far, being hardly visible in these regions of the Northern Hemisphere. butVoyager sends back pictures of Uranus as the first of many triumphs promised for the future. The month ends with Thatcher’s supporters dwindle, more more spectacular has been the American shuttle destruction, which still leaves a shocked nation in mourning. US President Reagan is diagnosed with more lumps and bumps but the actor in Ronald Reagan excels in the US memorial service to the lost astronauts, and Botha announces some modest apartheid reforms in South Africa as Haiti now struggles in a leadership crisis.