A wet and cold year of unsettled weather patterns, with our Horning road and neighbouring properties suffering the worse flooding since 1912 and the coastal sea defences breached. Our holiday in San Francisco suffering unusual rain which did not help the worsening plight of the homeless tramps and mounting level of violence.
We found a short spell of agreeable weather to make trips on The Paxton Princess; via Oulton Broad, Mutford Lock and Lowestoft Harbour as we made the sea journey out and then in again at Great Yarmouth. Also a significant year for me, my family holidays and dog training but a very sad one as my Mum dies.
A year of car crime also with both mine and my gardeners car broken into as I chair the foundation meeting of the first Neighbourhood Watch Scheme in Little Paxton. A shameful year too as the Daily Mirror invaded the privacy of The Princess of Wales by publishing photographs of her working out at a private gymnasium.
Enjoying my friendships with Nigel, Steven Bloom and also my new dog-training friend Jim Bird, sharing sessions under the aegis of the Pointer Club in Harlow when Sam was declared "Best Puppy" by the Eastern Region. This despite us having some health scares with him. With our dogs, we enjoyed a successful fortnight in my Broubster Caithness plantation catching trout and shooting stags and another bafgging grouse and the 13-point Imperial Stag from my own land was a real prize trophy for me.
Back home, Local County Council and District & Town Council by-elections were rewarding for the Liberal Democrats under my leadership whilst my party ended up with more councils in which they had a dominant interest than the Conservatives.
I acquired 50-52 Cambridge Street in a good deal for Diana and Nigel's investment and a property each for the children’s trusts. Less success with Freda selling Redgrave Stores. I experimented with a range of new programmes for computer navigation and weather monitoring and increased the capacity and display performance of my Amstrad portable.
We all had coughs and colds in March. By the time of my 47th birthday in November my latest health screen tests at The Evelyn Hospital showed my health holding up very well.
As winter came on, Della faltered and looked as if she was very ill with asthmatic breathing troubles as well, but she soon recovered. Debbie had her first contact lenses fitted and was being bullied at school and Daniel achieved a Lower Second Honours Degree in Computing Science but broke up with Angela but had a new, young, blonde girlfriend called Dawn, his roller-skating companion.
The bombing season resumed in April when the City of London was on the receiving end of a massively-destructive IRA car bomb and this, together with another outrage at an Ulster fish shop later in the year, put the issue of Irish determination back on the political agenda yet progress still seemed possible in Northern Ireland.
Peace bids in the Middle East eventually paid off and progress seemed possible in Northern Ireland but the affairs of the former Yugoslavia went from one crisis to another. The United States lead Western attacks on Iraq lost the support of Western allies and had to cease. In October we saw Russian President Boris Yeltzin's tanks and heavy artillery shell their own Parliament building and set it on fire.
The macabre spectacle of Russians killing Russians as other Russians watched on from grandstand seats. There was Norwich City's famous victory over Bayern Munich and the Great Britain Rugby League team's win the series against the Kiwis and England also beating the Kiwis in their Rugby Union Test Match as well. Nelson Mandela and President F.W. de Klerk of South Africa were rewarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
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This was a year of serious life events of which the biggest was the trauma of the death, funeral and estate arrangements of the last of my parents. My mother, Grace Hilda Broad, eventually succumbed to her heart problems in April. We had visited her quite regularly and she started the year all right, if weak in voice, beating the girls at "Cluedo" and keen to talk about her childhood to the girls. She did get to move into the special room we had prepared at Redgrave and died with Freda there and so at least she was not alone. The process of emptying and breaking up their home in Stanton was all a bit much for me as I also had to make all the arrangements for the funeral and administer the estate. At least we sent her away well and that gave everybody some comfort and the chance to grieve and live on together. It took the rest of the year to administer her estate, but I had collected Dad's fish from his pond in Stanton - one Koi and two goldfish - and they grew and flourished at Paxton thereafter as a testament to his life-long hobby.
It was a year of rising crime coming ever closer to touching our lives. It started with a car break-in on New Year’s Day in Norwich as I took Della to the cinema and lost binoculars, boots, two electric drills and a jigsaw. My gardener Bill had his car stolen and immobilised in Bedford in April as car crime became an almost everyday occurrence and the method of dealing with it resembled a rather unsatisfactory conveyer-belt. The decline in respect and consideration for other people's privacy and property was evident in the host of media excesses culminating in the appalling incident of the Daily Mirror invading the privacy of The Princess of Wales by publishing photographs of her working out at a private gymnasium.
This incident was to prove the final straw that broke the back of her confidence to appear in public. After our car break-in and a couple of car break-downs, we invested in a new Land Rover Discovery complete with its ultra-modern alarm and vehicle disablement systems. Break-ins in neighbouring properties in both Horning and Paxton lead to me chairing the foundation meeting of the first Neighbourhood Watch Scheme in Little Paxton which was then followed by the creation of others in the village.
As well as being burgled, our Ropes Hill Dyke neighbours had their bungalow flooded as the weather followed the unsettled pattern of the last two years. The year started cold and stormy with the normal flooding to match and the tragic grounding of an oil tanker off of the Scottish coast on the south-west shore of the Shetland Islands with a complete loss of all the oil in its tanks. The February frosts followed with even a little snow at the end of it for the first time in years. East Anglian floods were a close concern with rivers flooded and the sea defences breached later in the month, but we were thankfully high and dry at Horning at that stage.
It continued damp and chilly but, for a brief period from the middle onwards and arriving after some pouring rain, the hot summer sun arrived with a vengeance. The month of July started hot for Wimbledon and Della's Birthday Party but continued just plain drizzly and wet thereafter and August continued to be a rainy month at the end of a cold and rainy summer In October it had rained from second quarter of the month onwards with several downpours around the middle. Incessant rain during our second trip to Scotland in the middle of the month and ended it with a near blizzard as we battled our way down south.
Here to find that there had been a right panic with Ropes Hill Dyke and much of riverside Horning under water after torrential rains made worse by the north-westerly wind and high tides. It was only later that I could get over and witness the worst flooding in the area in living memory and since the great deluge of 1912. All the riverside gardens were under water together with many bungalows including Joan and Trevor Grey's house next door. The November wintery wind from Central Europe took the day-time temperatures colder and colder. A break for heavy rain and more floods, snow and ice before it turned mild and wet again for the last week. December was a wet month to complete a wet year with floodwater everywhere. The road to Harnser never really had a chance to dry out and will need much maintenance next year as a result.
The weather even followed us to California in April as we spent the first week in San Francisco experiencing all of the things that we used to and then the second in Anaheim where the rain that fell there was again described as unusual. The edge was taken off of this fair state for us by
We did find a short spell of agreeable weather to make trips on The Paxton Princess; via Oulton Broad, Mutford Lock and Lowestoft Harbour as we made the sea journey out and then in again at Great Yarmouth. We mostly camped at Harnser and enjoying its novelty for the first full season; making many trips to neighbouring resorts, beaches and entertainments. We met Sam Weller and Frances for the first time in years, taking them on a boat trip in the summer and then invited them again for a meal and enjoying their company at the end of the year. A better year for friends as Sally, now the Deputy Mayor, was expecting a baby and we were all glad it was a boy to join her two daughters. Good news also of Steven Bloom first getting a job and then promotion with Mary also getting work to give them much-needed security after their long spells of unemployment. Many snooker and drinks evenings with Nigel who joined me for two trips to Scotland to get away from his business and personal worries once his court case was deferred until next year.
My new friend Jim Bird, joined me to spend several other training opportunities with me as well. This was really the foundation year of Sam's training as he had his first experience in March of running with other dogs of his breed and underwent his first communal training session under the aegis of the Pointer Club in Harlow. His early faults in the spring were chasing around with other dogs, and not wanting to come back when called and then, when this was solved running way and playfully "mugging" passers-by! This was in hand by the summer as he swam readily to fetch dummies. My task was then to quieten him down and stop him opening his mouth to people in play.
He learned the stay command by September and retrieved boldly from water yet kept "springing" pheasants and partridges that he found and then "pegged" a couple of "cheepers" in the field opposite which really worried me. October was his month of glory as, having just celebrated his first birthday, he beat all of the opposition in a tough working test to win a red rosette and shield and be declared "Best Puppy" by the Eastern Region of the German Short-haired Pointer Club. He was much steadier by November; learning to discern and execute three concurrent retrieves and obeying hand signals to differentiate them.
As he grew through adolescence, he developed the bad habit of barking at and mouthing the other dogs and handlers at the training class until a trainer helped me take him in hand. As a result of being stricter, he got daily better in heel-walking and obedience but still had the occasional bad day, chasing three hares whilst my guard was down. As the water temperature dropped, I let him off swimming but then began to find trouble with him in making water retrieves out of his depth until I returned to insisting on it and making it a regular occurrence despite the cold. Provided he was towelled off and dried after, there were no problems with him.
Though a vigorous dog, I did have a few health scares earlier in the year. He had a suspected heart murmur in puppy hood which he just grew out of by March but he then caught a bacterial infection from the Scottish sheep ticks for which he needed antibiotics after coming out in nasty spots all over the tenderer parts of his body. In August, he had a nasty eye infection that cleared up with eye-drops and there was actual sickness for him in December as he was not himself for two days, sick and off his food but then he recovered on his own. Overall, he has not been an unwelcome addition to the household and has settled well to being carried around and bedded-down in cars and strange kennels.
He had also been cruising on the river and off-shore on boats and being handy enough on the shooting field whilst friendly enough with other dogs, people and children and never barked or whined to be a disturbance. He ended up on a single meal of dried food every day and not messing or wetting either his kennel, run or garden and being happy to be walked by the children. The coming year will see just how good he becomes in trials with his habits of mouthing of retrieves and flushing and chasing rather than pointing of game being the main problems to be overcome. His recent problems in relation to his age seem small compared with those of other dogs and he always has that keenness and enthusiasm that makes him catch the eye.
Meanwhile, my shooting plans were beginning to take shape as my firearms certificate was issued and I bought my rifles for stalking. My first trip of the year, to see my Caithness plantation in May, gave Nigel and I the chance to zero-in and use our new rifles and for me to kill my first Roe Bucks; taking one on my own land at Broubster and having the antlers as a trophy and the carcass of another skinned and butchered so as to be able to bring it home.
The only problem was the breakdown of the Range Rover such that I had to stay a second week and incur some heavy costs in getting it fixed. It gave me time to work out some arrangements with Ian McGregor for the future stocking and management of The White Loch but I turned over my ankle which was sore and healed slowly afterwards. I returned in late September and stalked two more red stags and killed my first sika stags and was catching some of the small trout that Ian McGregor had introduced to The White Loch as part of our management deal. I met Ian's son, Peter McGregor, seeing his new venture at Borgie Lodge and received my repaired boat back from Farquar. I towed it to one of Peter's garages for storage.
The second autumn Caithness trip at short notice to suit Nigel but the effort was well worthwhile as Jim Bird appreciated a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help me stalk and shoot a prize stag and to let his dog have experience of grouse. The 13-point Imperial Stag was a real prize trophy for me to have stalked in the trees and after such a two-day campaign. I kept up my record with this, my 7th deer, of having never missed and only needing a single bullet for each. The week came close to cancellation as I had a bout of feverish influenza. Then the new Land Rover sprung a cooling-hose leak on the journey and I managed to get it stuck in the mud whilst we were there but my friend Charlie Sutherland saved us on both occasions.
I had an active year generally and at times spent as much time in Horning as in Paxton. In the Spring, I was getting dumper-loads of bark shavings and levelling out the gardens at Harnser and eliminating the damp bits. I had lost a few pounds from round my waist from Christmas '92 to get under 14 stones and was getting plenty of exercise with Sam. I erected a good dog fence in Horning to keep him in.
Back home in May, the Local County Council and District & Town Council by-elections were rewarding. keeping Ruth Clapham at bay again. Nationally, the Liberal Democrats had a very good election, overtaking the Tories in terms of councils in which they had a dominant interest so that the Conservatives ended up by only controlling Buckinghamshire.
By June progress with The Paxton Princess that was brought back into commission after having very little use last summer and then with my 1939 Austin 7-engined Reliant (the last working example of its kind) that successfully passed its test after an even longer lay-off. I put the Rolls Royce into a dealer to try to sell it but failed but I did exchange of my old Range Rover for a new Discovery at last.
I acquired 50-52 Cambridge Street in a good deal for Diana and Nigel's investment. I had also started a property search for the children’s trusts in the Spring and, after a lot of trouble to find good properties at attractive prices, ended the year with one for each of them with two bought and tenanted and the purchase of a third in hand. By September we were running out of cash and were pleased to get back in funds by repayment from investments after the childrens' house purchases.
We thought that one source of conflict was removed when Freda told me that she was working on the sale of Redgrave by Christmas but it was not to happen. I had to keep chivvying along the gardener as winter came and joined in the work to get the top dressing down on the lawn, the rubbish shredded, and the compost bins charged and working.
I ended the year by trying to get my Land Rover electrical faults repaired and singularly failing; though we did get the Escort back to Norfolk and serviced to run properly. I experimented with a range of new programmes for computer navigation and weather monitoring and increased the capacity and display performance of my Amstrad portable giving 256mbyte storage and a colour screen and added a high-performance 4/86 station as the centre of a house network. I had less success in getting a new motherboard for Daniel's computer and ended up in dispute with the supplier.
By the time of my 47th birthday in November my latest health screen tests at The Evelyn Hospital showed my health holding up very well, my weight down and I was getting very good exercise but my cholesterol level is far too high which puts me at serious risk of having heart disease later in life. Diana started the year well and got on with her slimming and keep fit sessions and I gave her membership of the A.A. with a car-based emergency telephone to counter the problems of vehicle security and break-down. A poor time in February as she was suffering from tummy problems at the start of the month, dentist problems in the middle and then period problems at the end of it and was perhaps worrying too much about Della.
The damp and chilly spring month of March meant that we all had coughs and colds at some time or other, with that of me and Diana being particularly troublesome. She was upset by her car damage in St Neots Waitrose car park in April and then had plain sailing until she suffered terribly from a cough and cold later during the month. Over our summer holiday, she was losing weight slowly but steadily and logging progress by visits to the Boots weighing machine in Norwich. Then a stay at London's Hilton Hotel at Diana's request for her 45th birthday weekend in October but in December, another rotten bout of 'flu. At least she also had a day at Henlow Grange to recover and came back most refreshed. Another shock as she killed a neighbour's cat caught under the bonnet of our car when she started it but it was not her fault. She enjoyed our 25th Anniversary trip to Brighton most and three days in The Queens Hotel which was her choice of venue and a welcome time away from the children.
A worry for both of us was Della who was fearing examinations and suffering from her eyebrow and eyelash-plucking problems in March. Happily both of the girls' school terms had ended with very good reports and Della re-grew her eyelashes and most of her eyebrows during April. By May, she was fine in other respects but still plucking at her eyebrows and eyelashes as an annoying and unsightly nervous habit. Della's ninth birthday in July brought back memories of her accident for me. Brownie Revels in that month was Diana's last Brownie commitment to the pack. As winter came on, Della faltered and looked as if she was very ill with asthmatic breathing troubles as well, but she soon recovered. It had been a very nasty strain reportedly from Bejing.
A big event earlier in April as we arranged for Debbie to have her first contact lenses. She enjoyed her 14th Birthday and had a fine birthday tea in May and, in July, was off to Normandy for her school trip. Trouble to end the year as Debbie was coming home crying and so I took her to the cinema to see the comedy "So I Married an Axe Murderer" when I found out she was being ostracised and bullied at school. Her skin acne is a problem for her but, apart from her tearful interludes, she bravely copes with it.
Much of the real children’s news of the year was with Daniel. He was getting on fine in February and recommissioning his speedboat when the sad news came of his breaking up with Angela and, with his head cold and outstanding studying to do, he felt a bit hard done by for a while but was being brave about it. By his birthday he was more outgoing and did not seem to be missing Angela and had a new, young, blonde girlfriend called Dawn, his roller-skating companion.
In June Daniel has taken his final exams and achieved a Lower Second Honours Degree in Computing Science and I saw a lot more of him at Horning during the month. I took him to Lowestoft and bought him a new tool-box and set of tools in celebration and he re-commissioned his own speed-boat after a two year lay-off which pleased me greatly. He took the girls roller skating with him and his new girlfriend Dawn. We were proud in July at his U.E.A. Degree Confirmation though he was sad to leave as we carried back his things from Philadelphia Road, Norwich, where he lived with his university friends. However, he soon settled into two rooms at home (one as his lounge and another his bedroom).
His second steady girlfriend then went as he broke up with Dawn but then in September my friend, Nigel Smith, offered him a position as work experience and he showed signs of wanting to stay on. This was confirmed by November and the work experience had turned into a permanent position. He had three of his former U.E.A. friends and flat-mates to visit during the month and one of them, Simon, set up house in Eynesbury. As winter came, Daniel was quite badly affected by his bout of 'flu and had a day off work accordingly.
He was otherwise all right corresponding with his girlfriends and seeing Dawn again as they appeared to make it up. He made the effort to work on his M.G. and was rewarded with it passing the M.O.T. so that he could use it again. Daniel enjoyed his first pay cheque in December and a couple of trips to Norfolk to go skating with Dawn but had a setback when his car broke down with ignition key problems in St Neots and we had to rescue him so that he was considering getting a new car by the year end. There was just Freda left from the rest of my close family and life for her and her family went on at Redgrave but they had a set-back in the summer as Alf had that lapse of memory due to a stroke and his health deteriorated whilst he awaited a brain scan.
Elsewhere, there were highlights in the world as peace bids in the Middle East eventually paid off and progress seemed possible in Northern Ireland but the affairs of the former Yugoslavia went from one crisis to another and the rest of the world seemed to be going backwards. In January, there was the resumption of Western attacks on Iraq; lead by the United States and supported by Britain and, at first, France and the former Gulf War Allies as well. The measures went over the top so that the U.S. was isolated in the end and had to cease Yugoslavia continued to be dead loss all year.
Nearer home, there was the closure for refurbishing of the Cambridge Arts Theatre Restaurant The bombing season resumed in April when the City of London was on the receiving end of a massively-destructive IRA car bomb and this, together with another outrage at an Ulster fish shop later in the year, put the issue of Irish determination back on the political agenda. A poor year for government ministers as Michael Mates had to resign in June because of his links with Azil Nadir and poor Michael Hezeltine, the luckless Trade and Industry Secretary, had a debilitating heart attack.
The summer arrived and England lost test matches with Australia as Ian Botham retired from English cricket. A key House of Commons vote for VAT on fuel and another scraped through on Maastricht (due to a deal with the Ulster Unionists and the Speaker's casting vote). The Tories were hammered in the Christchurch by-election for its pains with my party as the beneficiary.
The United States went to the brink with Iraq again but this faded into the background as they incurred world disapproval for attacking Somalia's General Aidid. The summer also saw the crisis grinding on in the former Yugoslavia where mass injury and death found no bounds. Israel bombard Southern Lebanon and also get world condemnation which lead to their being pressured into talks with the PLO later. This brought hope to the Middle East where Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation got close to reaching the historic step of recognising each other and talking about Palestinian autonomy in Gaza and The West Bank. Sad news in September of a fascist party victory in the local election at Millwall Ward of Tower Hamlets. More political developments as the T.U.C. agreed the end of the Union block vote for Labour Party.
The Australian Prime Minister came to England and saw the Queen to get her support in the event of his people following his advice and ending the monarchy. In October we saw Russian President Boris Yeltzin's tanks and heavy artillery shell their own Parliament building and set it on fire. The macabre spectacle of Russians killing Russians as other Russians watched on from grandstand seats. The John Hume/Gerry Adams initiative could have had Sein Fein coming in from the cold after renouncing violence but this ran aground when Adams helped bear the chip-shop terrorist's coffin at his funeral.
In the conference season, the Tories lack of unity on Europe still haunted them as Margaret Thatcher plagued John Major with leaks of her published memoirs on the eve of the Conservative Party Conference with her views of John Major being uncomplimentary. There was Norwich City's famous victory over Bayern Munich and the Great Britain Rugby League team's win the series against the Kiwis and England also beating the Kiwis in their Rugby Union Test Match as well.
By November, John Major was getting personally involved in trying to solve the problems of Northern Ireland and falling out with the Ulster Unionists in the process which boded ill for his forthcoming parliamentary majorities. Then Rail Privatisation Bill passed through the House of Lords from which it was sent back twice before as a constitutional crisis loomed. Last-minute panics in December on the GATT negotiations that were settled at the 11th hour and the Commons approved a bill to transform Sunday Trading rules. Another poignant seasonal broadcast from The Queen ended the year.