Stormy wet and miserable month flooding the moorings, family fine with Daniel making some school progress and enjoying a school narrow-boating holiday and a Boat Show trip with me. Di and I a stay in London without the children. Debbie widening her taste for food, riding well and elegantly in her new kit and Della started Playschool happily. Regular meals out, church family services with the Rev Peter Lewis having the same ‘flock’ as I for my forthcoming Paxton Ward election, where my party is gradually getting its act together after merger pains. My Little Paxton History project grinds on through its editing stage, I am managing investments, turning down a Non-Executive Director position with Compsoft PLC and supervising work on my riverside Games lawn and gardens, surviving high flood-water in the process. Bought an old Reliant and was zeroing in on a Rolls Royce convertible to buy as a leisure vehicle. Thatcher roundly condemned for trying to supress the dirty deeds of the security services and the ‘Shoot to Kill’ policy in Northern Ireland, but loses a Bill on ‘Whistle Blowing’; her visit to Africa is marred by anti-Apartheid demonstrations, she has a whole month of industrial unrest in the coal, motor and ferry industries but, even worse, unprecedented strikes and protests from NHS professionals and three presidents of Royal Colleges but refuses to allow increased funding or an investigation into NHS finances. She loses her key ally, Willie Whitelaw, her Tories rebel on the planned child benefit freeze. The government of Israel are in even worse odour; the UN Security Council voting 14 to 0 to insist that Israel repatriates Palestinians illegally expelled from their country, UK ministers visiting Tel Aviv roundly condemn the shooting and beating of demonstrators, as Arabs stage a 3,500-strong torchlight procession. The Amoco oils spill of Brittany costs them $85.2 million of damages and now a giant 4.5million gallon fuel spill on a river 16 miles long in Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh has forced 1,000 people to evacuate their homes. The world economy is a study. Most chartists have the present slight recovery in the run up to a deeper depression and give the system 2/3 months to run before the big drop happens. Reagan and Gorbachev exchange pledges and hopes for their future negotiations in New Year’s Day resolutions which also aim to garner their citizens’ support.
Yet more stormy weather sees out the month of January; such a miserable month in many ways with gales, ‘severe weather warning’ and rain storms which sinks small fishing boats off of Blackpool. The wettest January for as many as thirty years but the flood not as much so as in 1974; but with the ground water table being very high, more persistent the rising floodwater floating the edging planks for my Games lawn but receding gradually with many fields still under such that I will be glad to see them again. Normally the gardens are not affected, but this time the plants may be drowned and today. Our immediate family are all well, for the most part; even though the children complain about not feeling well sometimes and Diana having a sickness bout one time, blaming me for causing tension, which led to a depressing row; but she has resumed Slimming Club, which is good. Chas and Chrisula visited to collect my spare video camera on loan Daniel and Debbie’s hearing is slight cause for concern but Daniel doing a lot better with his sinus condition. We saw Daniel off to Kimbolton for the start of their school narrow-boating holiday with Steve and collected him after a break very much disrupted by the weather but totally enjoyed. Steve also joined us as I took Daniel to The Earls Court boat show and we heard about the sad story of the marital problems of his parents driving there.
I was marking up the boat show catalogue for suitable vessels but there was little suitable for our desired beam and headroom restrictions but I did produce a list of our requirements before driving back before making lunch for Daniel and the girls who were with me that afternoon Daniel has just about finished his mock GCSEs and we now have to wait for the results. I had bribed Daniel to clean the Range Rover as I took down the balcony lights to store away until next Christmas. I had started phoning around boat yards to investigate our requirements which was positive at first but then Buckden Marina did not want to talk about boat designs but were more interested in site development with cabins. We had many family meal out this month, normally gathering the family together at the library on Saturdays after school and taking them to The Bridge Hotel for a nice lunch and to The Happy Eater whereby chance we met both Amy and Catherine with their grandparents and Helen and her family on a single occasion. I sometimes joined the family watching television in the lounge but I more often work in my office. Debbie had a seafood tea, one evening, sharing prawns and has been riding the difficult Rumpold beautifully at Offord riding school and, on one cold but sunny day, she looked very smart in her new riding gloves, boots and jodhpurs, practising her recorder on other days. She joined me for a Little Paxton walk on another dry and sunny but cold morning. Little Daniella now happily goes to Play School, joined me for a chat over breakfast one day and I had to mediate on another over her breakfast vitamins. All three children to lunch at family restaurants on Saturday lunchtimes as a routine, and often sharing fresh roast chicken eaten off of our best china and silver service for Sunday lunch. We drove to Stanton to visit my Mum and Dad and they were pleased to see us and there was much talk of Reliant vans, but Mum had found the recent weather depressingly wet. At least they appreciate their new roof I had recently got them, as the rain would have been a worry before. Diana and I had an enjoyable trip to London, making our journey to book into the 3rd floor of the Selfridge Hotel before seeing Charlton Heston star in ‘A Man for all seasons’ at The Savoy Theatre in The Strand to end an enjoyable day without the girls. Charing Cross Railway Station was a mess that evening, as it awaits renovation. The self-service morning drinks and breakfast buffet was not a highlight but the shopping afterwards for Di in the first day of Harrods’s sale was but we could not agree on cutlery before the long drive home to collect the girls from Bar Hill. I also took the family for a St James’s Church Family Service and a short Sunday School play on the theme, ‘Education Sunday’. There was a slightly disorganised choral session but a good congregation under the Rev Peter Lewis who had visited me beforehand about my history project and whose support I am anticipating as his remit of Little Paxton, Southoe and Diddington coincides with my forthcoming Paxton electoral ward. With regard to the District Council elections in May I went to a poorly-attended St Neots and District Liberal/SDP Alliance Committee meeting one evening whilst the national party was going through merger aggravation. Hearing of poor progress in the SDP/Liberal negotiations, this created doubts about the viability of competing with the Tories here but then there was better news and an agreement but, when SDP voted by 80% for merger with the Liberals, Dr David Owen was not happy and had a battle with Shirley Williams and colleagues over these SDP merger proposals. I had reviewed my intended candidature for the Huntingdonshire District Council elections and with it my choice of standing for the SDP/Liberal Alliance rather than as an Independent with the option of joining them later and they accepted this position. My history project was a bit frustrating this month– so much of it to do and so little time to do it. There was also much time alone in my office on frustrating administration of all sorts, whilst also monitoring the markets for investment opportunities and anticipating a key stock market date today with Sterling down 5c in the dollar and also reviewing my taxation affairs with my accountant. I was closely watching the slide on Wall Street, with High Technology the big losers, as I worked on my investments and was then offered a Non-Executive Directorship in Compsoft PLC by the guy I had met as the former ICL Chief Executive, Robb Wilmott, but Nigel talked me out of it as Rob lost most of his money in the October crash. A visit from my former Comart partner John Lamb, who still owns 2% of Kode shares, and I tell him that he should sell them soon, as we had a chat and then lunch together. I still press on with the history project with lots of audio tapes to transcribe and then start editing the manuscript to make better reading and more sense. I had one local journalist interview me about the book for an article on one occasion, collected a very unwell but determined Ivy Bunnage and took her to her sister Vera Ruff’s house to talk about Little Paxton history on another and attended St Neots Local History Society AGM to hear of plans for a local museum. I also visited the Huntingdon Record Office for more information. I was also working on the plan for a conservatory extension Between times, I was also supervising work on our gardens, re-siting the doves feeding table after the gales had just about destroyed it, and completing the riverside games lawn which is now laid and nearly finished, as a good achievement this month but it was then flooded with the water lifting up our new edging planks so that there was not much for gardener Pete to do apart from lifting wood out of the way of the rising floodwater. I walked up to the lock with Debbie to see the cars no longer trying to pass through the flooded road and then, after seeing John Lamb, I had walked back over the Traps as the river was still flooded at Samuel Jones Paper Mill and as the rain fell and the river remained in flood making this the wettest January for very many years. There were shots from wildfowlers in the foggy meadows opposite but he river was very high and receding very slowly in the foggy and frosty weather that followed until the Games lawn had surfaced at last and I started looking at lawnmowers and ended up buying a multi-bladed lawn mower from Cambridge. Concerning the river meadows playground, there was a welcome change of heart from Godmanchester Council. After a leisurely start on a calmer day than forecast (as the storms hit the West and North) I used the ladders to clean out all of the Hayling View’s gutters from leaves and pigeon droppings. As a new indulgence, I purchase a 1939 Reliant 8cwt van and research older Rolls Royce models, advertising with the RREC and visiting two dealers including Jack Barclay’s at Berkley Square where I loved the look of a 1920s 20 HP grand open tourer but Diana made me look at more modern Corniche convertible models as a more practical choice as Silver Cloud II convertibles were worth far too much money. The present political situation is rather desperate, with acrimony and disarray the order of the day, whilst Thatcher carries on regardless. There is the battle over censorship as another MI6 officer tries to publish memoirs and is gagged and more Secret Service memoirs are suppressed. The Observer successfully won a court battle over government censorship and now The Sunday Times have to follow suit. John Biffen leads a revolt in support of a reform of the Official Secrets Act. Even worse, there is the news is of a massive Tory revolt and defeat in The House of Commons over Richard Shepherd’s Private members’ Whistle-Blowing Bill’ but the Sunday Times being able to publish more of the Spycatchers book but not before the Independent newspaper journalist Jeremy Warner was fined 320k for not revealing his sources.Thatcher is being condemned during her visit to Kenya for supporting South African apartheid and her African visit was marred by protests with her aid Bernard Ingham hurt in the melee There is industrial unrest with 20 pits being closed by the unofficial Yorkshire Colliery strike. They go back for talks and Arthur Scargill survives a leadership challenge from Jack Walsh, but the Ford talks have broken down after an 11th hour meeting was convened to try and stop the Fords strike. The dramatic strike news arises from Thatcher’s treatment of the NHS which start with more reports about the plight of the National Health Service with delayed operations, with Birmingham heart operation babies the most publicly shocking, but liver transplant teams run out of cash to continue, there is a lack of heart specialists and more stories emerge of patients let down over lack of NHS funding The Presidents of three Royal Colleges of medicine express dismay over lack of funding in a mounting conflict between Mrs Thatcher and the medical profession over Health Service funding. Nurses strike for the first time in their history over salary cuts and there are more strikes in the health service over reduced allowances making Thatcher back down on these nurses allowance cuts, after facing critical parliamentary questions about the health service, but is now planning cuts to regional and industry support grants instead. The nurses were striking in three London Hospital and more London and York nurses joined 2,000 ambulancemen considering joining the strike action in the run up to Chancellor Lawson’s budget. NHS Tory health Secretary Moore refuses to consider more funding for the NHS or even an enquiry into NHS funding whilst the Chancellor is looking to make tax cuts and refuse more spending. Scottish health workers are on strike too and 1,000 angry health workers demonstrated in Scotland and nurses were striking there too but at least Thatcher rules out NHS hospital charges this parliament. Thatcher is losing one of her most loyal colleagues as Willie Whitelaw’s family became most dubious about him resuming his post of Leader of the House of Lords, after his recent stroke and now Viscount Whitelaw is retiring from the House of Lords which will make Thatcher’s programme even more difficult to pass. Tory back-benchers then rebel over the planned child benefit freeze which is only the start of it. The month shows Thatcherism being challenged by further strikes on the ferries, in the coal industry, by all these health professionals and now by her own Tory backbenchers. There us uproar in the Commons over the appeal dismissal for the obviously innocent Birmingham Pub accused whilst no action is taken on the Irish ‘shoot-to-kill suspects. The Stalker enquiry into the Northern Ireland forces ‘shoot-to-’kill’ policy was thwarted after its investigator Deputy Chief Constable John stalker had been suspended and side-lined by un-sustainable charges. In the meanwhile, back in Ireland, an IRA bomb explodes near the Belfast City Law Courts, two explosions take place in the Falls area of Belfast and, on the other side, Ulster Police intercept a huge arms shipment for the UDA as Ulster politicians are in trouble over attending illegal marches and a senior Ulster judge has resigned, criticising lax security for the judiciary. Thatcher meets Chirac and they make no progress on the EEC Budget Crisis. Other developments in the UK, Labour MP John Hughes was banned from the House of Commons after raising the tragic case of a baby during prayers ‘inappropriately’, a Welsh house fire kills a father and four children, a climber dies in North Wales and two potholers are also missing in Wales in poor weather and, Leeds lorry driver Paul Guest, was cleared of murdering PC John Speed due to ‘lack of evidence’. Many violent incidents mar New Year’s Eve celebrations with the worst was in High Wycombe, where a mob of skinheads fought with a gang of youths, with many injuries and a shot being fired . Neil Kinnock carries all before him in the labour leadership battle as the dollar stayed depressed and the stock markets continued both nervous and erratic as my predicted financial collapse seems to be happening. The former Hong Kong head of the Stock Exchange is arrested for fraud. The Cleveland Child Abuse nonsense is at last being dealt with other consultants taking the cases, there is mixed news on the whereabouts of Terry Waite, Thomas Sopwith, creator of The Sopwith Pup of WWI ‘Biggles’ fame is 100 this month and my Namesake Chris Broad scores 120 not out against the Aussies at Lord whilst the Prince of Wales is heckled by Aboriginals in Australia. The big world story this month is in the Middle East with Israel rebuffing the UN emissary and the UN Security Council voting 14 to 0 to insist that Israel repatriates Palestinians illegally expelled from their country, the Occupied territories in the West bank and Gaza Strip. After at least 19 people had been killed by Israeli warplanes in the Lebanon, there is more Israeli over-reaction against demonstrators in Gaza which is condemned by our visiting minister David Mellor, who also condemns the squalor of refugee camps there. The Gaza Strip violence and David Mellor’s outspoken statements were critically featured in the pro-Jewish Tory press but he and his officials are standing their ground. Palestinians die in Gaza at the hands of Isreali forces who use poison gas in their camps. Gerald Kaufman has to intervene to prevent Israeli forces from detaining an ITV camera team, Israel is under more UN pressure over its West Bank/Gaza tactics, now that mass beatings are being meted out instead of shootings after more widespread unrest in Gaza and then Arabs stage a 3500-strong torchlight procession. Kurds have murdered a West German Diplomat at the Paris Embassy’ Amoco have been ordered to pay $85.2 million of damages after spilling 68 million gallons of oil when sinking off the Brittany coast in 1978, and now a giant 4.5million gallon fuel spill on a river, 16 miles long in Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh has forced 1000 people to evacuate their homes. Customs Officers seized more cocaine last year than in the five previous years put together. In Argentina, a rebel former Lieutenant Colonel, Aldo Rico, is holed up in a base 500 miles north of Buenos Aires and is facing government troops pledged to put down the revolt. In the meantime, the world economy is a study. Most chartists have the present slight recovery as a regular stage in the run up to a deeper depression and give the system 2/3 months to run before the big drop happens. Reagan and Gorbachev exchange pledges and hopes for their future negotiations in New Year’s Day resolutions which also aim to garner their citizens’ support.