June 1989

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Published: 30 June 2019 30 June 2019

Flaming June brought its hottest day here since 1976 and the wettest ever month in Australia. My family had problems with allergies and hay fever, but my most serious family health issue was the spread of my father’s skin cancer to his inner ear with the next biggest worry,  being Della’s acute reaction to a Sundance horse blanket which had been unwisely hung in the hall! This month, we trailed Daniel’s boat to the Norfolk Broads as we stayed in a riverside chalet and then commissioned The Lady for another trip.

At home we then had the pond and garden chores to catch up with afterwards, with gardener Pete away for some of the time, and we had the Smith’s barbecue at Hail Weston House and a Lodge Farm Diddington barn dance in between our customary family meals out. I sold the first 420 copies so far of my huge work ‘The History of Little Paxton’ and filed the press cuttings and photos afterwards.

During the month I pursued alternative investments in a Wroxham riversdie property and meadows in Godmanchester but decided against both; between sessions working hard on my financial summaries and accounts, creating a St James’s Church historical leaflet for a very appreciative Reverend Peter Lewis and attending countless District and Parish meetings where I managed to get some things agreed. The Democrats fared badly in the Euro elections but we got our man elected locally for the Parish Council.

The country’s politics nationally were dominated by Thatchers problems as labour and union disputes handicap the country and the Tories lost 13 seats to Labour such that an anti-Thatcher coalition will be in charge of the new European Parliament. Thatcher is not only under siege from external industrial disputes but also from internal dissent over EEC economic cooperation and the EMS as she is alone in resisting EU reforms.

Despite appalling news from China, Thatcher is refusing sanctuary to fleeing refugees from Hong Kong after the latest crisis is roundly condemned. Estimates of the deaths are as high as 7,000 with Chinese police then arresting 600 leading dissidents to brutally crushed political opposition. Three protesting students are then tried and executed and the ‘tank martyr’ was then shot dead for his bravery.

It was a bad month for Russia as a gas pipeline explosion killing hundreds, a Soviet MIG 15 crashed at the Parish Air Show,  a new Soviet nuclear submarine, the K-278 Komsomolets, is stricken by fire off of Norway and Russian cruise liner, the ‘Maxim Gorkiy’, hits an iceberg in the Arctic Ocean such that a thousand passengers have to be rescued!

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