October was a month of unseasonably fine UK weather and the family were well this month as we celebrated Di’s 40th Birthday, Daniel loved my new Apple Mac and the children had outings and friends to stay. It was time to protect the swimming pool and The Lady from frost, and to take her to her winter flood mooring and the cars were cared for too. The conservatory base-work was progressed without too much mess and difficulty and I did a lot of work on the Games Lawn this month. Still time to progress my Little Paxton History and to give my first two public talks accordingly. Time also on my investments, vehicle history enquiries and planning my 1989 diary. I was still spending lots of time on local politics and amenities and helped local intuitions to survive planned extinction and got approval for my new suggested Byelaws for The Playing Field to combat dog fouling, but the Tories voted down my proposal to increase grass-cutting cuts from 10 to 15 per year. I witnessed St Neots Tory Mayor Bill Longford going against Town Council resolutions in voting for a Tory financier Twigden’s development proposal and ensured the local press were then castigating him. I had also been rejuvenating the local SLD party for the forthcoming election campaign. The Labour Party Conference went fairly well, with surprising unity displayed but the Tory Conference has to be held in strict security and their plans for freezing Child Benefits, banning GCHQ unions and their energy, education and health policies were even being opposed by their own party members. Also, a raft of poor economic statistics and factory closures are blows as is the Government loses its ‘Spycatcher’ case which reveals how the surety services plotted to undermine Harold Wilson’s Prime Ministership. The Ulster troubles continue with the 2700th victim killed. The Greek ship Jupiter sinks with British school parties aboard, air crashes kill dozens and protests in Yugoslavia and Pakistan kill hundreds more but the greatest casualties are in the Philippines hurricane.
October was a month of unseasonably fine weather after the poorer and wetter stuff earlier in the year. We had remarkably warm and mild days with the grass still growing but wealso had a few bright and sunny days after a cold and frosty start rather rainy autumn days with leaves falling, which was to be expected. The family is well and back to routine after a holiday rest. My Mum and Dad seem much better than of late after Mum’s shingles attack as we found out when they visited unannounced. And the word from Cornwall is that my sister and family are well too. We celebrated Di’s 40th birthday early with an extensive lunch at Wyboston Lakes, and then a present-opening and game session after I had a frenetic time with the girls choosing cards and presents, wrapping them and getting them ready to deliver them to her!
Daniel ‘helped’ to try and clean the Range Rover and had his friend Gary round, but was much more interested in my new Macintosh from Bill Walston which Daniel monopolised for much of the time and, as a further example of his computer expertise. Daniel also took over my Apple Mac for a school project and he and I wrestled with the Apple Mac trying to understand PageMaker without manuals. Debbie was also fascinated with the drawing capability of the Mac, enjoyed her horse-riding and was sociable having her friend Helen Cranston to stay overnight and her friend Amy round to help me clean the car and the garage before she finished the month attending a Brownies Halloween party. Di and I took the children to the St James Church, harvest festival supper and barn dance, and for other family services and we also had our Cambridge trips and took the family to The Bridge Hotel in St Neots the Happy Eater in Sandy for lunches and for trips to the Willington’s and Bickerdike’s Garden Centres. Di took the girls to see the Disney ‘Aristocats’, and to the Riverside fairground where she unfortunately dropped her purse and relied on a kind man later to return it.
I cleaned out the swimming pool and adjusted its balance for winter storage, moved The Lady to her Winter flood mooring and completed her layup procedure for frost protection and I checked the old Reliant for frost protection too and I was still pampering my Range Rover with cleaning and care. The conservatory base-work was progressed without too much mess and difficulty this month, even if the design is still far from resolved and an HDC Building Plans rejection was cause for concern. I got advice on my Koi carp pool design and bought my pond liner from Avenue Fisheries. Di and I went to Stevenage to order floor tiles, and eventually the bricklayer laid the first three or four courses of bricks, completed the block work around the pool surround and laid electricity cable so there was progress. I also spent an inordinate amount of time giving the games lawn a finally mowing and then scarifying, raking and filling the lawn drainage channels before applying top lawn dressing and Carboryl as a combined pest killer and fertiliser with a third of the top dressing completed by the end of the month. I met up with John Lamb for a drink and lunch at The Rocket pub before dropping in at our old offices and meeting up with Ian James. The Mill Meadow farmer visited to tend his 21 cows opposite successfully, which is always a lovely sight.
I spent some time organising my preparation for my first two lectures at the St Neots Local History Club and The Friendship Club where my talks, on the History of Little Paxton, went down well. For the second one, at The Village Hall, I collected my old Little Paxton Ladies and took them to sit in the front row and they were given celebrity status. St Neots Weekly News journalist, Tracey Reddit, wrote a feature article on my Little Paxton History and I was enjoying collecting Little Paxton press cuttings. I also joined the St Neots Museum Committee, and the Museum Director agreed to review my Prehistoric History manuscript, but I was sad to hear of his ill health later. I had a useful visit to see Mr Les Forscutt to borrow more of his 1849 Rix Little Paxton pencil sketches and I am now greeted widely as I walk around the village I was now using my Comart computer to update my Little Paxton Pre-War history chapter and was researching about electronic publishing, spending more time on the Apple Mac word processing function and organising data files. I was also working on my family investments and financial affairs, analysing my Thormaid forestry investments and the benefit of the government grants halving its costs. The stock exchanges around the world are slipping back after the recent increase and so I take profits on Glaxo. I even found time to try tidying and reorganising my office and with a filing exercise today and sorted out some administration I made up my 1989 diary, putting in all my known meeting commitments. I was still spending lots of time on local politics and amenities and was pleased that things were looking up in Little Paxton with the Parish Council Village Hall Committee, Brownies and Scouts now all staffed and sorted out after my intervention. We have to look ahead at proposals to increase the amenities for the local people. I worked hard on my plans for a Little Paxton Parish Council Meeting and then got approval for my new suggested Byelaws for The Playing Field to combat dog fouling.
I could not win at the HDC Leisure and Amenities Committee meeting where I presented my grass-cutting proposals where the Tories moved a counter-proposal and declined to increase cuts from 10 to 15 per year. I tried the same at the HDC Housing Committee meeting, when I was supported by the two Labour members and the Independents, but the Tories voted the proposition down again. I witnessed St Neots Tory Mayor Bill Longford going against Town Council resolutions in voting for a Tory financier Twigden’s development proposal and then immediately reporting this betrayal to the Priory Doom committee meeting who immediately published a damning Press Release and I got some good press stories castigating Tory Mayor Bill Longford about his betrayal over Eaton Meadows. Our local Social and Liberal Democrats FOCUS newsletters are very successful and hopes high for the next elections. Pat and Percy were always dropping round to use my copier to print out some press releases andwe took a tour of the Buckden County Ward villages with our candidate Percy Meyer on a fine and sunny day, taking 36 publicity photos and I helped him prepare Delivery Information Sheets for all 13 of his Buckden Ward delivery walks. I also accompanied Michael Pope for his photo session as the day turned sunny and my press campaign was now rattling the Tories. There was quite a good SLD meeting with the priority on campaigning.
The Labour Party Conference went fairly well with surprising unity displayed.; Neil Kinnock and Roy Hattersley were re-elected as leader and deputy leader of the Labour Party and Neil Kinnock scolded his critics in his closing Labour Party conference speech and the transport union tried to influence Labour Party policy on nuclear disarmament. Sad news as Labour Shadow Chancellor John Smith starts his recovery from a heart attack in Edinburgh. The Party Conference season is in full swing and the huge costs of security for the Brighton Tory conference is an issue. Thatcher addresses the faithful with much complacency even though inflation has risen to a three-year high of 5.9% (which will now feed through into mortgage rate increases) and the UK trade figures are the worst quarterly return in British history. Chancellor Lawson is accused of cheating by the opposition as, nationally, they are failing to increase Child benefits in line with inflation. and there is no compensation planned for Barlow Clowes investors, even though they had a UK investment license. Also, rail fares are sharply raised prior to privatisation. Lawson defends his budgetary policy and the Tory Conference is in full denial trying to ignore the Nurses justifiable pay claim and Health Minister Clark firstly refuses to meet the nurses who are lobbying the conference. Then the Health Minister makes a U-turn and announces an extra £125million to meet the nurses regrading costs but the government fiddles the unemployment statistics for the 24th time to exclude school leavers now! 5000 civil servants walk out in sympathy for GCHQ staff after their victimisation for joining a union, but the national Tory Conference hears of new policies on energy and prisoner supervision. A £600 million plan is announced for Britain’s air traffic control but their plans for charging for eye and dental checks are opposed by 60 Tory rebels. and more papers are released which were proposing the end of three further education and reduction of teacher and doctors training budgets. The Monopolies Commission has ruled against the pricing and competition policies of British Gas as the government plans a massive increase in nuclear power to reduce dependency on coal and the coal miners. Moves are mooted against the petrol pricing monopoly, drunkenness in public places, the Manchester BAE factory is closed because of serious illness due to Legionnaires’ Disease in the water and air conditioning systems and two Royal Ordnance factories are to close after government sell-offs to save money. In other UK news; two men from a wrecked trawler swam 9 miles to be rescued off Penzance Cornwall, Lester Piggott is let off the last two years of his tax evasion sentence, the Coroner’s Court reached a conclusion of ‘Accidental Death’ for the 31 Kings Cross Fire victims, British Airways have decided to buy £1 billion worth of planes from Boeing rather than the European Airbus manufacturer, England’s cricket tour of India is called off due to differences over England players’ South African connections, a rebel congregation in London hold a Holy Communion with an overseas female priest and huge quantities of cannabis and heroin are seized in Scotland Yard drug raids. A powerful and controversial documentary featuring the conservation and architectural concerns of HM The Price of Wales, lambasting some architects, is much discussed. Ex-intelligence officer, Peter Wright, wins his legal case allowing him to publish the Spycatcher book, which contains details of a Secret Service plot to undermine Harrold Wilson’s Prime Ministership. The 2700th victim of the Ulster troubles was killed in an ice cream parlour, when he was filling in for his brother, and an Ulster feud between rival Unionist loyalist organisations leads to a killing. Three IRA members have been found guilty of conspiring to murder the Northern Ireland secretary and get life sentences and the government bans TV interviews with Sinn Fein and the IRA changes to the Laws of Evidence are being changed for terrorism to prevent those accused remaining silent and Dr Ian Paisley shouts down the Pope’s speech to the European Parliament.
Jupiter, a Greek Piraeus shipping line cruise ship, sank with 400 British schoolchildren on board after a collision with an Italian cargo ship and both the missing teacher and pupil are presumed dead and an earthquake takes place in western Greece this month to complete their misery. Freak weather in Spain causes flash floods after heavy rain - Strange scenes at the Heysel Disaster Court hearings where there is another row and more chaos when defence lawyers walk out in protest and a crazier-still aircraft crash at Rome airport with a Ugandan plane tries to land flying blind, which killed 31 An Indian air crash kills 150 people in the latest of a spate of such incidents. Israel has conducted air raids on the Lebanon and some Arabs are calling for a general strike in Palestine over the continued Israeli occupation of their country and others use violence with a bus destroyed by incendiary bombs. The Israeli army are wreaking revenge on the Palestinians by bulldozing their houses which is a gross atrocity. The Polish government announces the closure of the Gdansk shipyard with Lech Walensa claiming it is a political provocation, it being the birth place of Solidarity. News from the USSR is of Gorbachev taking over as Soviet president and making a historic pledge to release all the ‘political’ prisoners by the New Year, which is good news and the Russians are preparing for the launch of their equivalent to the US Space Shuttle as the US discovery space shuttle landed successfully after eventful but successful space journey. Troubles in Yugoslavia with three shot dead in resurgent violence and a demonstration by 20,000 in Tito grad, Yugoslavia, with 200 more dying in the protests. Widespread violence in Pakistan in Karachi and in Hyderabad with scores of protesting youths dying and hundreds being injured and troubles also in Algeria. Hurricane Joan is devastating Nicaragua with at least 28 dead and some 140 missing and a big hurricane in The Philippines has claimed 550 people and made 60,000 homeless as news emerges about ex-Philippine President and his wife (President and Mrs Marcos) are being charged with fraud. In South Africa, the extreme right-wing party is obtaining success in the local elections which is bad news and a blow against the cause of racial integration. George Bush does well against challenger Dukakis in the US presidential debates.