A month of bitterly cold weather (the worst since 1963 and probably for 40 years) and one that sees the family generally ill, but me fighting probably my worst threatening illness since my childhood acute appendicitis with minimal support which disrupts my supervision of the building project and results in us suffering the cold without any central heating for much of the time. Still much work is done as private and industry affairs take a back seat. The UK Government in crisis with industry and employment failures and radio-active leak scandals with Murdock still antagonising the print industry. However, The Philippines manages to make the transition to democracy under Cory Aquino from the corrupt dictatorship of Marcos. Some signs of hope also in South Africa with Mandela in talks amongst the slaughter of innocents and bad repression by the government of free expression. Elsewhere, the Iraq//Iran war turns ever nastier, lives are lost at sea and safety concerns halt NASA space flights and restrict Boing 747’s
And so ends February – a wretchedly cold month with snow and ice, particularly bad in Northern England and Wales, as I protect The Lady from a severe frost as temperatures drop to -10degC, which froze the River Great Ouse in one go. This was variously described as the chilliest for 40 years, or the worst ever since the freeze up of 1947, or the coldest winter since 1963 but it was very cold and unpleasant by any definition. We have suffered most of it without central heating and were relying on open fires and fan heaters and this coincided with many family illnesses but none worse than my own. It started with an infection of my urinary tract and ended up with a full fever with a back ache from kidney infection which my wife and the doctor did not seem to take seriously enough. Added to that, was a bout of the ‘flu that led to a very badly-organised visit to the doctor that ended up with me being left outside in the freezing-cold dusk for fifteen minutes and then suffering headaches and feverish flushes in the aftermath.
There then followed by my worse-ever night of illness, in a deep fever all wet with perspiration worrying about pneumonia taking hold as a bad cold adding to my discomfort whilst being prostrate and unable to leave my bed. It turned out that I was being that I was being treated with the wrong antibiotics! Apart from me, by the end of the month, the rest of the family were recovering from their coughs and debilitating sickness and, as far as I know, all indirect family members were well. But the sun now rises high and, in my view, as soon as the wind changes direction there will be a dramatic climatic change for the better. Except I am now so far behind with the family paperwork that bills arrive in red, threatening that services will be cut off. Despite all of this, a good time with the children again; Daniel with cinema trips, homework supervision and working together on my word-processing microcomputer; taking Debbie to see Peter Pan and reading her stories and playing with Della but trial and tribulation quickly interrupted this family scene as Daniel’s housemaster caught him stealing money repeatedly from my wallet. Then, as I recovered, a longer story for Debbie and game of Monopoly with her and Daniel as he started making amends by doing chores and bringing improved school assessments home after working harder. This disruption also left me trailing the builders in all manner of handicraft jobs that I was trying to interlace with their work. Uppermost of these was the installation of a security system with wired everywhere. By the end of the month, the builders had turned the stairs around, refashioned the old hall, stairs and landing, plastered and were now in the latter stages of putting in the new bath-ware and the wall tiles. They will soon have finished and can then hand over to the decorators. In the meantime, we already have taken possession of an extra-large bed, curtains, lampshades and other furnishings are in store waiting completion. The security safes have been installed. The swimming pool progress is halted to await the end of the frosts which the weathermen now forecast this for the end of first week in March. Our main worry is now the design of the heating systems because, although we now have all the necessary electrical controls, the gas board are querying the position of the boilers. In the garden, Pete chips away at the frozen heap of earth, lacking the access and confidence to do much about it. I get a visit from Nigel Smith, who marvels at the work but is shocked by my illness. I have done almost nothing on computer industry affairs, but still read the computer press and journals, and I have had to reject a postal invitation to join the exclusive judging panel for the industry RITA following my industry retirement. Before my illness, I did spend a little of early February on my genealogical hobby in Hertfordshire and The Greater London Record Office but to no great effect. In the world beyond our gates, the Thatcher government stumbles from one crisis to the next, with no sign of the end of them. They cut Social Security increases as unemployment soars and the UK tax office fails to answer 5m enquiries! Now the teachers have voted to strike and Head Teachers back school boycotts but petrol drops 3p as crude oil prices continue to collapse. However, a by-election is to come! Sterling collapses again to $1.375 as the oil price plummets to nearly $18 a barrel and a record low but Sterling rises 3 ½ cents against the dollar later, making imports cheap and exports more uncompetitive and there are riots in Bristol. As the aftermath of the Westland Affair rumbles in in Parliament and it is claimed that Alan Bristow was offered a Knighthood if he backed out of the European Consortium support and mysterious shareholders emerge to thwart the European Consortium’s bid such that Sikorsky/Fiat win the day. Thatcher uses foul parliamentary tactics to avoid questioning and the latest Industry Minister seems happy for the remaining UK car industry to be passed over to foreign ownership but too late Thatcher tries to take a ‘U’ turn over British Leyland but still more than 1.000 job losses are planned such that 8,000 Land Rover resist the foreign takeover and yet more jobs lost as our shipbuilding and defence contractors are left to close their doors,. Tory Grandees use the Young Conservative Conference to make coded attacks on the wounded Thatcher: Home Secretary Douglas Hurd speaks out on the Tory’s uphill battle to regain support and the process is not helped by their redefinition of unemployment for political purposes and Ted Heath speaks out against the government’s abandonment of any UK industrial strategy. But Thatcher and her cronies follow their ideology and they seem to care only about privatisation of the water industry. This as British Nuclear Fuels is at the centre of several radioactive emission risk scandals as nuclear radioactivity spillages at Sellafield and Sizewell are confirmed and thousands of anti-nuclear demonstrators picketed the Molesworth base. A major toxic leak takes place at the ICI plant at Grangemouth and another radio-active leak takes place at Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant as a Public Enquiry is announced to look into the radio-active nuclear waste leaks and dumping of waste into the Irish Sea. SOGAT are still trying to fight Murdoch and his banning of trade unions and print industry revolution. as the NGA assets are sequestrated by the courts, leaving striking print workers without support as Murdoch’s Wapping plant experiences its largest mass picket yet Kinnock pledges to repeal Thatcher’s anti-union legislation. This as PC Havelock was finally charged with shooting Mrs Cherry Groce at the start of the Brixton riots but scary news emerges of riot training and arming of police as this promises to become a much more adversarial and less consensual country. At least Labour start rejecting David Hatton’s Militant Tendency in Liverpool and their National Executive agree measures against Militant. Elsewhere in the world, there is a remarkable transition in The Philippines where Marcos in bad odour and the 17th supporter of Philippine’s opposition leader Ms Aquino (herself the widow of an assassinated politician) is murdered during her election campaign to fight the sitting President Marcos but Marcos rigs the polls and his regime claims victory. The US comes out against Marcos and asks for a peaceful handover of power and then the Army rebels against Marcos and took over the army and police HQ’s and Philippine rebels take over the government TV station. Cory Aquino and her supporters hide from repression but the Catholic church and civilians form a human wall to protect them. Marcos marines guarding the Presidential Palace are hemmed in by massed humanity but open fire but Cory Aquino wins the people and armed forces over and is sworn in as the new President. Then, the full story about the Marcos family corruption emerges concerning former Philippines president Marcos. In the US, NASA halts all space flights over safety concerns. An Arab/Israeli incident hits the headlines, there are also Government crisis times in Haiti with Papa Doc Duvalier. In Sicily, there are mass trials of 100+ Mafia defendants in Palermo and in South Africa, Winnie Mandela hints that her husband Nelson might soon be due for release as Mandela appears in public for the first time and looks to be in a drawn and pale state. 30,000 pupils commemorate the death of the first freedom casualty and South African security forces prevent journalists from reporting this repression as mass murder of black demonstrators takes place in the South African township of Alexandria. Internationally, East/West spy swaps seem to be proceeding as cracks and failures in Boing 747’s are worrying. and fighting has escalated in the Iran/Iraq gulf war as Iran has crossed the intervening waterways and are on the receiving end of a counter attack. At sea, a Russian cruise ship sinks with 35 people missing and a. French trawler men die off of the Hebrides. Rioting conscripted Egyptian security police trash three hotels.