A full day working on my local history book, typing up and organising interview notes and then returning to see Frank Hall, with his ‘gravel pit’ friend Dickie Sanders, returning photos and borrowing more. A fascinatingly-enjoyable but very late evening as they love to talk and recollect. The US congressional enquiry into Irangate, concluded that President Reagan and his staff acted illegally and un-constitutionally over the arms supplies to Iran and funds transfer to the Contras, Iraq bombs an Iranian nuclear power station construction site, killing 10 people and Thatcher’s Government decides to implement the Poll Tax in 1990 to avoid resistance
Up on time and to breakfast. A very poor boiled duck egg to eat, as Diana seems incapable of boiling them to the point where the whites are solid and the yolks liquid! Did not read the paper, but settled straight down to the task of merging and sorting the outstanding history interviews. The technique was to take each text interview, one at a time, and write away blocks of text on certain houses and families to file. When coming across another section relevant to a particular subject, the old file is read out, added to, and written away again, with a copy of the interview title as its first line to denote the source. This technique is necessary because my respondents wonder about so much from subject to subject as they come to mind. Later, I will merge each file with the last edition of my manuscript and then edit it down to a single text that encapsulates all of the information.
A steady and tiring job, particularly as an error would be serious and information over looked. Broke off at 12.30 to make myself a salad lunch (pork pie salad) and watch the lunchtime TV news. The stock exchange was ahead this morning and then slipped back gradually all day. Carried on my work this afternoon and had completed about 3/4 interview files, the resultant subject files being messy, but relevant to the subjects concerned. Di came back angry this afternoon that I had not cleared up the kitchen after making my lunch, but at least I had looked after the making of the meal in the first place! After tea and feeding the birds, I prepared my history files and then went off to Wantage Gardens again to see Frank Hall and his gravel mining friend, Dickie Saunders. I got there at 7.00pm and first put a number of outstanding queries on our last interview to Frank Hall. He cleared these up well and had also spoken to Brian Goulds and sorted out for me the families that occupied the cottages opposite the church before the 1945 fire, which was helpful. Returned his old photo and borrowed some more. Later, Dickie joined us and we went through his pictures and his memories of Little Paxton gravel development. This was good, but it seems that a whole section of extraction in South Little Paxton was actually done by another company, Redland, with which he has no connections. He left at 11.00pm, after we also spent a long time talking about local river history – tales of otters, pike and eels, amongst other things. I wanted to leave too but ‘Polly’ (Frank Hall) said, ‘Will you get locked out then?’, and I said, ‘Well, no but...’ and he insisted, ‘Well, sit down again then and I’ll get you another drink’! I do not like leaving these old people, who treasure these meetings, and so I kept him company whilst we both had a night cap. Home and to bed after midnight, which I could do without. The news was of the US congressional enquiry into Irangate, concluding (by 2/3rds majority) that President Reagan and his staff acted illegally and un-constitutionally over the arms supplies to Iran and funds transfer to the Contras. Now Reagan has to respond to written questions from the special prosecutor investigating the issue. Iraq has bombed an Iranian nuclear power station construction site, killing 10 people, including one of their leading nuclear power experts. The government has decided to implement poll tax in one go in 1990, to avoid damaging resistance to a phased introduction, but the policy will still be unpopular. The ballot of postal workers on strike action was only supported by a narrow margin and so the threat of a strike is receding.