I was really teaching Debbie to ride a bike!
I was really teaching Debbie to ride a bike!

Meetings and David Barford’s 10th anniversary lunch after which I resume teaching Debbie to ride a bike as pit managers union NACODS votes by 80% for a strike

An early start to the day and, after breakfast, washing and dressing, I manage to get into the office by 8.30am. a long slog for a couple of hours calculating and keying in fuller details for my Investment and Income summaries; typing also a covering letter for despatching a copy to my accountant, Roger Brittain. Just time to prepare a few papers before Bill Freyenfeld arrived. Bill is a Consultant active in the City as a founder member of the C3 club – assisting relationship between the City and the computer industry. He was visiting today on an assignment for the Computing Services Association to conduct a fact finding mission. They are reviewing what scope there might be for closer cooperation with other trade associations and I gave him chapter and verse about the BMMG. I ended with the theme that we had been disappointed in the past with the CSA’s assertion that the government should best support services at the expense of manufacturing industry due to our ‘inability’ to compete with the US or Japan.

A hurried departure in view of my next appointment for lunch and I see Bill to the local Leyland dealer, Marshalls, to help diagnose some misfiring he has experienced with his Rover. Myself on to David Barford’s offices in St Neots for a lunchtime buffet to celebrate his 10th year in business. A large section of local businessmen in attendance; solicitors, bankers, many with property interests in the area. I recognised Roger Brittain, Brian George (of the bank) and our personal surveyor (Mr Stokes of Huntingdon). John Lamb and June were also there and I exchanged my daily Information Bulletins for a selection of recent computer journals. I left at about 2.15pm, earlier than most, and dropped by at the bank to collect some money. Back to the office, changed, and some reading on an afternoon that had turned out to be quite warm. The locksmith’s carpenter had finished most of the work today; installing new front door and back door security locks, and security catches and bolts to all downstairs and vulnerable upstairs doors and windows. A very comprehensive job on the whole, but still some work left to do. A salad tea and then a spell teaching Debbie how to ride her bike. The ducks away and then Debbie’s handwriting exercises. She finishes reading and writing book 3 and we have to get book 4 in Cambridge tomorrow morning. The evening sticking in press cuttings from the journals I have received late this week; but still missing copy I am supposed to have had in Your Business and Electronics Weekly. News tonight of a positive 80-odd % vote by NACODS for a strike that would close down the entire coalfields if implemented. But legal setbacks in the Yorkshire area in what Scargill calls ‘the latest attack from the Judiciary.’ Other power and electrical unions have gone through a due process of consultation with the NUM as required by the TUC, but do not look like offering support. A convoy of police vehicles are ambushed and stoned in Yorkshire and attitudes continue to harden. The Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of Durham are supported by others who preach the gospel of reconciliation rather than victory.