The job of collecting my remaining flag boards and chatting to supporters including the local coach proprietor who, with his wife, had both voted for me and then a trip to St Neots with Di and Della to buy some family christening presents followed by a reciprocal trip to St Neots Evangelists with John Law’s family. Thatcher addresses a closed meeting of ‘true blue’ supporters as Edward Heath have the McMillan lecture and lambasted her ‘uncaring’ government and called for an end to The Poll Tax proposals and Sir Geofrrey Howe and Nigel Lawson gang up on Thatcher over exchange rate policy
Slept well enough and rose on time for once and made my way to the breakfast table. I took the Range Rover afterwards and toured the village, collecting my remaining flag boards and chatting to a number of people who were congratulating me. I was pleased that Mr David Payne, the Little Paxton coach proprietor, stopped and did likewise. It seems that he was a Labour supporter, after his father, his wife a Tory and for the first time they voted together for me and the SLD! I took much longer than I thought and it seemed like another 15 or so of the boards before I had finished. I talked Di out of her trip to Bedford and took her and Della to St Neots instead, but first I chased HDC for my meeting papers and then I made arrangements for a party meeting at Glisson Road on Tuesday, to finalise my Election Expense return.
Once in St Neots, we had coffee at ‘The Harvest Cafe’ and then I looked after Della whilst Di bought some birthday and christening presents for Chrisula and baby. We drove to Tempsford for lunch on The Anchor lawns by the river and were served before 12.30pm and the rush. This afternoon, I worked on my correspondence, keying a letter to the Cambridgeshire Chief Constable and wading through paperwork. An unfortunate occurrence today, as the Range Rover was over filled with petrol, which drained out onto our tarmac drive and caused a hole and quite serious damage. This evening, I went with Di and the two girls to John Laws church family evening of games etc. Though no Evangelists ourselves, we were reciprocating the Laws’ agreement to attend the Church of England barn dance next month at Diddington and felt obliged to go. The children quite enjoyed it anyway. Later tonight, I tried a little more work and wrote to British Telecom, but I could not get my photocopier to work and had to revert to photocopies. The news today is of Thatcher’s speech to the Scottish Tory Party faithful, where only ‘true blue’ party supporters were allowed in the hall. On the other hand, former Tory Leader and Premier, Edward Heath, giving the inaugural McMillan Lecture, lambasted Thatcher and her ‘uncaring’ government and called for the withdrawal of the Poll Tax. Then Sir Geoffrey Howe, the Foreign Secretary, publicly backs Chancellor Nigel Lawson over the exchange rate policy, which is known to be counter to Thatcher’s wishes.