Passing my 40th Birthday and celebrating Bonfire night during a generally wet and windy month but this makes my new project of researching and writing Little Paxton History a more attractive use of time but I also try to spend much of it with the family at home and on trips out and, although Diana struggles, I am pleased to see the children developing. Prime Minister Thatcher continues to pursue her controversial right wing policies with record unemployment leading to another ‘Jarrow March’ and cannot get away with her scandals anymore such as her duplicity over prosecuting an Officer for his MI5 memoirs and this may scupper her plans for an early election. The UK suffers huge financial scandals as a direct result of de-regulation and Europe sees tragic pollution of chemicals and oil after the recent nuclear incidents and the environment is a worry but a greater one is the East/West nuclear threats and the Middle East political tension is rising but Terry Waite brings back one released hostage and with it some hope, despite his concerns. The future of South African apartheid is also an issue
Another month has flashed by. The weather has been generally wet and windy, with some chillier periods, but no really severe frosts yet. Not that it has affected me very much. I have spent most of the month visiting Public Record Offices, Libraries, Norris Museum, St John’s College and The Cambridge Collection, etc., and have tried to find enough time for local, family, and Manorial history whilst still playing my own family and parental role. I am much closer to finding the Little Paxton Manorial holdings now and have also contracted to buy the Lordships of the Manor of Great and Little Linton whilst exploring a grant of arms that might accompany the matter. Overall, my Little Paxton History project is coming along well and I should get most of it researched and written this winter, but it is very hard work, though rewarding. This all made for an enjoyable November. The house is fine and we are using up supplies of logs with open fires on the chillier nights – though more are out there from the land clearance, waiting to be sawn up. This helped support a very successful bonfire night party with lots of neighbours enjoying our fireworks and huge bonfire. . The cows are still in the meadow opposite and getting quite fat and I think they will be gone by the end of the month. Still not managed to sign contracts on the sale of No.39 Gordon Road, which is a frustration but my new Range Rover had its first service and I enjoy driving it.
I have been taking Di out to the cinema recently and we have enjoyed the outings, even if some of the films are a bit rough, such as ‘Highlander’. All the family are well, except my mother. Her broken wrist is taking a while to heal and the frustration of this and her hip makes life there rather unbearable. Still, they kept up a brave face for their radio interview on ‘disablement and mobile homes’ and we safely recorded it. Daniel is in the middle of his exams and, provided he keeps working, I think that his results will show continued improvement. We welcomed Daniel home from his weekend away, I helped him with his homework and he was entertaining the girls as his stammer abates. He worked outside with me very reluctantly and then I took him off to Kimbolton Castle for the firework display. I was not too chastened by the occurrence of my 40th birthday and I celebrated it first thing with the children before resuming my family history research by travelling to Hertford and then got back too late for joining the girls for my birthday tea but in time to join Debbie for her ‘Brownies’ investiture and bedtime reading. This reading to Debbie of Country Companion in front of a log fire had become very enjoyable for both of us whether it is after her ballet or other evening event before bedtime. She is up to 1 hour riding lessons now and surviving well but her front teeth are replacing themselves and so she makes an awesome sight. Sadness watching on TV the Cenotaph procession on Remembrance Sunday but pleasure at joining Debbie and her Brownie’s troop at St James’s Church for our own local service. Daniella is going through her ‘terrible twos’ phase, rebelling and being difficult, although I now think she is past her worst. She is still driving Diana mad. Di seems not to be able to cope with the children’s behaviour now that more of my time is occupied with my new history project. Di and I are still slimming, though I think I am being a bit more successful than her so far. After experiencing a couple of trips to London recently, including a hotel stay in West London, I am all the more glad to be out of the rat-race. This laissez-faire political policy at home of letting the less fortunate look after themselves, is going to lead to trouble sooner or later. Unemployment is still rising, the balance of payments worsening, but, after a period where the Tories seemed to be getting away with it, security and city scandals are, thankfully, beginning to take their toll. To the disgrace of a government that never learns. 80 men have completed their rerun of the 1930’s Jarrow March. Tebbit is criticised by his own senior colleagues for his rabid BBC attacks, the East Midlands teachers are called out by their unions, and Thatcher’s cabinet seem to be organising a mini-boom ahead of the election which Thatcher may call the next election in Spring or Summer . The Tories lose the Kirby by-election with Labour and The Alliance doing well and the Tories nowhere. Sensing her time might be limited Thatcher publishes 19 new Government Bills which pursue her Government’s doctrinaire prejudices, including a host of privatisation plans but offer nothing to relieve unemployment and poverty. The papers are full of financial scandals following the recent Tory deregulation of the City with cases of insider trading and loss of confidence in established Merchant banks and the Stock Exchange falls on insider-dealing worries. I have my own stockbroker’s meeting with Nicholas de Zoete and colleague to no great effect . Thatcher is on the defensive over her prosecution concerning an Officer’s MI5 memoirs. The Attorney General, Sir Robert Armstrong had to go to the Australian Courts to confess that previous answers were wrong and the Government had made a conscious decision not to prosecute which torpedoed the case there. She has also been using civil servants to leak anti-opposition comments and she loses a UN resolution 116 to 4 asking for Argentinian negotiations over the Falklands as they are upset about the new exclusion zone. Her visit to see Reagan reveals her charms may no longer be working with regard to Syria and nuclear arms control as she negotiates with the US to ensure we keep our nuclear weapons. Her Education Secretary, Ken Baker threatened to intervene in the teacher’s dispute but failed in his wish to extend the school day by an hour to properly accommodate the new national curriculum and Local Authorities pressed ahead with teacher dispute negotiations ignoring his ‘offer of help’. 40 people are arrested for anti-nuclear protests as up to 1,000 campaigners peacefully protest at the nuclear pre-processing plant in Cumbria and the CND have been demonstrating on the missile transport roads holding up the traffic. The IRA miss a police station with their mortar bombs and hit houses near the Irish border and in Middleton, Co Armagh, but Sein Fein joins the Irish political process. On a another slightly more encouraging note, there is better news of the Queen Mother who is home for the weekend after her hospital stay but it was also revealed that he late King George Vth’s death was hastened by injections so that the first news to appear in the morning papers and the Royal family field criticism for this. Mr David Jacobson, the Papworth heart surgeon implants his first artificial heart, and Terry Waite, working quietly in the Lebanon to try and get our hostages released, gets his first hostage release in American David Jacobson. He returns with victory but harbours concerns for the others. British medical staff in Saudi Arabia are expelled for attending a party where drinks were served and back home a mailing campaign to highlight AIDS awareness. On a darker note, the Hyde Park/Park Lane rapist is convicted and the Chinook passenger helicopter crash grounded its entire fleet. The Petersfield Prison Siege ends. Then there was the tragic death of an invited audience member in Noel Edmund’s Late Late Breakfast Show and The Broads Bill has its first unopposed First reading professing to make the Norfolk Broads into a National Park. Chris Broad makes his maiden century for England and raiders with shot-guns steal £7,000 from Little Paxton sub-post office. In Europe, the Greeks and France resist the EEC imposing sanctions on Syria, and there is huge pollution on the Rhine which is turned red with mercury salts killing ¼ million eels in Germany and a stricken ore carrier the Kowloon Bridge is evacuated off of Ireland in suspicious circumstances as a rusting hulk and the now sinks against Irish rocks, risking a major oil spillage. In the States, Reagan is now a lame-duck President, having lost control of both Houses of Congress to the Democrats and his administration wracked with signs of deceit and incompetence. Concerns mount over an Iranian arms deal being made for hostage release and Reagan cannot explain how Lt Col North could have arranged the Contra military aid without White House backing US-backed fighting continues in Nicaragua and now it seems cash from the US Iran deal was syphoned off to fund the Nicaraguan rebels. An IBM research lab in Heidelberg has been bombed in protest. Iraq tightens its grip on Iranian oil export terminals and rockets and bombs explode in Baghdad. The US now breaks the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty 2 by loading a bomber with multiple cruise missiles and the USSR mounts a huge nuclear weapons display in Red Square and so we shall see what the next month brings. In South Africa, P.W. Botha has replaced many of his cabinet with younger and less reactionary ministers to provide some hope of reform and Barclays, but still IBM and General Motors pull out of South Africa. There is action from anti-whaling activists as they sink two whaling boats in Iceland. ‘Actione Direct’ kills Renault boss George Besse, A coup to oust Cory Aquino fails in the Philippines. The Indian Government start a $1000 million claim for damages over the Bhopal chemical disaster and so who knows about the Rhine pollution implications. The Israeli nuclear technician, who was allegedly ‘snatched’ from Britain by Israeli security agents after leaking information to the press, has appeared in court . his month, marks Cary Grant’s death after a long life and many marriages