Celebrating Della’s first birthday and my first full year of retirement with visiting Freda and enjoying family holidays in Bude and on The Lady after concluding some good investments and visiting my new Scottish estate with Daniel after working with my architect and landscape gardens and completing a fair number of computer industry activities, plans and proposals as the apartheid unrest in South Africa and a Ugandan coup holds the headlines and The UK declines to follow UN calls for sanctions and further more Thatcher loses Lords votes and even more friends.
And so ends this July, part of a summer that has seen much wind and rain and little prolonged sunshine or hot weather. I suffered a long and depressing journey to Orpington in Kent to suffer a Greek Christening, but we have then celebrated baby Della’s first birthday, and thus my first year of retirement, and are safely underway for our longest boat holiday of the year as the month closes. The family are adapting well and enjoying all this but we had a disastrous school report of Daniel’s lack of school progress, Debbie has made progress with swimming by managing without arm bands for the first time but, unfortunately, the girls are suffering from a tummy upset and, on top of that, we suspect that Debbie has worms, which we will purge when her queasiness has past. I managed the long drive to Bristol to the Holiday Inn en route to Bude to video our holiday visit to Freda and family to find them well. We stayed in the poor Grenville Hotel, whose staff rightly feel that it has lost its family atmosphere by taking in retired clients.
The forestry is progressing well and, apart from Kode, all aspects of my fortune’s investment plans are performing satisfactorily. I have to decide over the next 2/3 days on the disposal of £1/2 million, long-dated gilts, to realise the gains tax-free and cover the need for capital gains tax this autumn. My antique collecting and other hobbies have taken a back seat, but soon I hope to visit a few places, including the Bedford auctions. I travelled with Daniel to the East Midlands and then flew to Scotland for his first trip to Thormaid to see my newly-acquired 630 acre forestry estate in Broubster in the Scottish Highlands. I have had a meeting with my architect to plan The Hayling View and have drawn up my grand design for the riverside gardens using my antique drawing set and I restored my relationships with PITCOM colleagues and have caught up with outstanding BMMG and private business before leaving and can now enjoy the summer holiday with clear conscience and so we end the month away on The Lady and, whilst we are away, the gardeners will be finishing off the riverside garden. Elsewhere, Reagan (who is hospitalised with cancer) and Gorbachev agree to meet for arms talks, and the US hostages return home, the Rainbow Warrior is bombed and sunk. The South African turmoil draws international condemnation for the repression of the Blacks but Thatcher refuses to follow World moves to implement sanctions against South Africa for Apartheid atrocities despite a UN call for South African sanctions as over 1,000 have been detained without trial. Uganda is plunged into civil war and a military coup overthrows Uganda president Milton Obote and the UK resumes the Ethiopian airlift after Kinnock visits to see the atrocities there as the AIDS virus spreads at 100 per week but Live Aid is a resounding success and raises £40m. A burst dam in Italy kills 230 plus people. Back home, The House of Lords insists on ending corporal punishment and defeat the government on Top peoples pay with my PITCOM friend proposing the motion. The Tory government runs into more trouble for cutting back on DHSS funding as schools places are cut back and yet is increasing civil service pay, and, and ploughs on with plans to privatise the Royal Docks. At last, Ian McGregor speaks up and complains of government intervention in the NCB. Thatcher smarts as the Alliance wins the Brecon and Radnor by-election and from her party’s rebellion on Top People’s pay and rejects the Duke of Edinburgh’s report on housing finance. Long long-term unemployment is up 37% in the last year but, at least, Ford opt to produce the new Lead Burn cars for Europe at Dagenham and the IRA British resort bomb threat is assumed ended. The BBC backs down on broadcasting an IRA documentary and then BBC journalists strike over government censorship. UK police clamp down on demonstrators using new draconian powers of arrest. FIFA allows English national football back into competitions and the football league opposes draconian controls on fans, but are under government pressure to agree.