Some work this morning with Percy Meyer on his Buckdon County Ward election plans after a very poor night’s sleep. Out later to work in the riverside garden, top dressing the games lawn with Pete and then time inside later gathering press cuttings and preparing for my talk at the St Neots Local History Club this evening. This talk, on the History of Little Paxton, went down well. Two Royal Ordnance factories are to close after government sell-offs to save money, Sara Keays succeeds with her injunction and Neil Kinnock scolds his critics in his closing Labour Party conference speech. Huge quantities of cannabis and heroin are seized in Scotland Yard drug raids and England’s cricket tour of India is called off due to differences over England players’ South African connections.
An exceedingly poor night as I had to try to go straight to bed last night after my stressful Parish Council meeting and my active mind kept me awake. We also had a gnat buzzing around our faces all night as well which kept both Di and I awake. Worked at my desk for a while today, updating some finances and then Percy Meyer came over and ice started him going in the process of drawing up delivery instructions and cards for his Buckden County Ward. Then out to the Riverside garden to carry on top-dressing and at least a dozen more wheel barrows spread on the lawns. The weather was windy today, but the forecast showers stayed away. I worked at the lawns before and after lunch with Pete mixing and sieving the earth to make the top dressing. Still a long way to go before the lot is done. Later on, I gathered the press cuttings from this week’s local papers for the Little Paxton scrapbook before tea. Tended the birds and then washed and changed for my talk on Little Paxton History at the St Neots Local History Club.
I arrived half an hour early at 7pm and had the hall to myself and set it up as I wanted, despite persuasive argument to do it differently! I made a good presentation, well-prepared and interesting, and the large audience enjoyed it. 50 slides and a lasting image of Paxton Park left for them to treasure and cherish. The news today is of the closure of two Royal Ordnance factories in Scotland and Lancashire within a year or two with a loss of 2,500 jobs. After being sold off by the government to BAE, the aim is to reduce costs by one third. There has been a company-wide walkout in protest. Sarah Keays has obtained an injunction to prevent the publishing of Norman Tebbit’s book, ‘upwardly-mobile’ which contain slander about her ending her affair with the Tory cabinet minister Cecil Parkinson. Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, in his closing speech to the Labour party conference tells his critics off for not ‘keeping their mouths shut’ and says that many who would wish to vote Labour will suspend their judgement until the defence policy review is favourably completed. There is concern within the party over the power of the Trade Union block votes. A Jordanian student gets 12 years for raping a 14-year-old girl after she went to see a London pantomime. Two more big drug raids by Scotland Yard in the last 24 hours have netted two tons of cannabis worth £6,000,000.08 kilos of heroin as well. The England tour of India has now been officially called off after the Indians objected to the South African connections of various cricketers in the England test team