Success for me progressing my history book and acquiring of a new Daimler for me and boat for Daniel, and for the kids with their school work. Thatcher rules a de-industrialising society even more divided by wealth and now oppressed by opposition to unions and secrecy rules attacking free speech in the so-called protection of security and use of Police causing rioting in the Midlands which would not have pleased the late Harold McMillan; one of the many famous personalities whose lives end this freezing cold and fairly wet month which also sees family ill-health but family celebrations as well. At home, the SDP/Liberal Alliance party wins the Greenwich by-election, the Aids infection spreads, the Church of England decides to allow women into the priesthood and elsewhere, the thawing of Soviet oppression and reforms there failing to win arms reciprocation from Reagan as he loses key aide to the Iran Arms sales scandal and violence continues in Ireland but Syrian intervention helps a troubled Beirut
After a milder start, much of the month’s weather has been bitterly cold and uncomfortable, with flurries of snow as a result of the accompanying winds. Also a fairly wet month as well which has left the ground is sodden. The trees are budding, but they have not burst open yet for fear of lingering frosts. The garden is in good shape, due to the time Pete has been spending on it, but the work on the new lawn is in limbo until the bank protection work starts. We have been quite fit lately, or at least I have, though Daniel his continued catarrh/sinus troubles and Di has had a throat/chest infection
and has her background condition of Haemorrhoids, which is a shame. Della also ends the month suffering and was quite dozy, which could mean she is sickening for something. Our main health concern remains my Mother, who we saw earlier in the month staying in a very dirty and disorganised West Suffolk Hospital where her surgeon Mr Bracegirdle was rude and unenthusiastic when questioned about a proper hip replacement but we reluctantly accept his advice and at least we now know what type of operation she will be having and when. Back at home, we are justly pleased with Daniel’s improvements in assessed school performance, but he is still slightly below the average, though improving all the time. Debbie has been catching up on her maths (tables and fractions) but is now rather fed up with the work and missing out for odd evenings. We will be pleased when her examination for Kimbolton School is over for which Debbie was being tested and assessed for joining the school. She had not done very well in her interview and I approached Mr Jeeves, headmaster of Little Paxton CP School to review Debbie’s Kimbolton assessment before we had another evening at Kimbolton School, ostensibly to review Daniel’s ‘progress’ (after he had achieved his best-ever school assessments) but also getting reassurance from the headmaster, Donaldson about Debbie. Daniella has her good and bad times, but overall her behaviour is a bit better. She is now definitely left handed, Di rightly believing children should not be schooled into holding the pen in the ‘right’ hand. We had a visit from Di’s mother who intends to down-size their house and we attend a birthday party evening for Charles Jackson snr at The Three Horseshoes in Maddingly. I arrange a delivery of flowers and an invitation for Di to The Bridge Hotel Clayhill for Valentines Day to complete the celebrations for the month. The Hayling View is fine and I find three nests of dove chicks struggling to keep warm in the cold weather and I ring the survivors and this month I renovated and supplemented our range of nest boxes. The swimming pool contractors, Elm Leisure, eventually came good in the face of threat of legal action, by building a block wall to separate the boiler from the car in the garage. I am sure they will need to return, however, to add a ceiling and a louvered door. I take delivery of my new Daimler to put in it and ordered a new boat for Daniel – a Viking 17, with a 20HP Mariner engine after a trip to Walton on Thames on another cold day with Daniel to view and trial it, though we had to break Thames ice to do so! I have got on well with the Little Paxton History working on my local history data, sorting the content into a single file for each chapter and then starting the editing process. Having completely finished copying and cataloguing the Little Paxton Scrap Book, so as to present a copy with the return of the original to George ‘Jack’ Ramply, I am finishing off the principal interviews, so that the project can be wound down for the summer. I had my first visit to St Neots Local History to gain further information and advice but their own members’ efforts at publishing could be better. Elsewhere, there is little change to the economic and political outlook in these divisive times. The rich get richer and the poor poorer and the more so under Thatcher. The Special Branch is justly criticised for an oppressive raid on BBC Scotland over the ‘Secret Society’ documentaries, a Commons debate was forced about it with support from both the Opposition leaders and TV and Radio journalists walk out to protest against Thatcher’s use of the Official Secrets Act to supress the media. During a futile effort to use the courts to supress information, the Attorney General, Sir Michael Havers, admits having given two interviews to the journalist Duncan Campbell, and then had to stand down from the post after this followed a series of problems over the Westland affair, the MI5 case in Australia and now this Zircon affair. Scottish law officers then ruled that 5 of the 6 BBC films be returned and. MPs eventually see the Zircon programme within the confines of the Palace of Westminster. By the end of the month, the BBC seems to be regaining its composure and of its new Director General should underpin the corporation’s traditional values and they escaped some possible dramatic changes to the radio service despite Norman Tebbits persecution. Throughout the month a massive hunt continued into trying to find the missing Terry Waite who had ruled out any ransoms to be paid in his farewell note but more of that later. HMS Splendid’s towed sonar was captured by a Soviet submarine. Alistair McLean, Wynford Vaughan-Thomas, Liberace and Fyfe Robertson all died, Harold McMillan is buried in Westminster Abbey, Andy Warhol dies of a heart attack having his gall bladder removed and McGlinchey’s wife is murdered and the sadistic ‘Vicarage rapists’ are given harsh sentences. On the industrial scene, Print union, SOGAT’82, has to admit defeat against Murdoch, but there is an end to the BT dispute as the unions secure a 12+% pay rise and their engineers vote to return to work. Lord Young announces Thatcher’s latest legal sanctions against union and talks of ending the NCB monopoly. The British Airways sell-off is hopelessly under-priced and costs the country £300m!. Leyland Trucks to be sold off to DAF of Holland, but the rest of British Leyland is saved with £750m aid. Kenneth Baker faces a series of half day strikes over teachers contracts. Thatcher unfairly distributes the new working Peers appointments to exclude the SDP and Liberals and the Stock Exchange starts to do well and then more insider trading revelations limit this advance and this is followed by news of even more financial revelations in The City. Kinnock is criticising Thatcher about tax cuts. And opposition parties pledge to cancel Sizewell if the Tories lose power as another nuclear leak brings the Springfield plant to a halt. The Tories popularity has waned and they have just a 1% lead in marginal constituencies delaying Thatcher’s wish for a general election and, though Labour were favourites for the Greenwich by-election, the SDP/Liberal Alliance candidate Rosie Barnes wins well. The government reacts to food surpluses by relaxing development controls on agricultural land and the Law Lords rejected the father’s bid to save his unborn child from abortion, whilst The Church of England votes to enable women to become priests, and yet another British Army Chinook crashes killing its passengers and crew. Police in Belfast shoot women customers and a gangster armed only with replica guns in a raid, and there is a riot in Wolverhampton over police violence. Mick Jagger’s girlfriend, Jerry Hall, is cleared of drug offences in Barbados and. a Navy helicopter crashes off of Cornwall and monopoly as Simon Wiesenthal finds ex-Nazis in England Greville Janner MP will release details of ex-Nazi war criminals living in Brittain. Cynthia Payne is cleared of controlling a brothel as the AIDS infection grows amongst mainly homosexuals. In sport, Gary Lineker score all four goals as England beat Spain 4-2. Elsewhere, Charles Haughey Haughey fails to get a majority in the Irish elections but will try to form a government but the big story is of an Irish trawler being dragged backwards by a submarine for hours. Two Irishmen are arrested for planning an attack on Margaret Thatcher’s son’s wedding and Loyalists raiding a UDF base are stopped carrying away 170 guns. In Europe, three Italian policemen are convicted of raping a prisoner and seven armed men escape from a French bank siege through tunnels. The Americans, in political terms, are still rejecting the Russian overtones for a nuclear test ban and arms reduction, which is depressing. as Reagan tries to press on with Star Wars anti-rocket programme with the nuclear de-escalation talks being threatened. The USSR pardons 140 dissidents and will review the imprisonment of as many more as the Soviet reforms make the headlines with Jewish demonstrators now being tolerated, but the family of imprisoned Jewish dissident Iosif Begun protesting in Moscow were again being attacked and the Soviet whistle-blowing Psychiatrist, Dr Anatoli Koryagin is at last released from detention. The US Senate is blocking Reagan’s accelerated ‘Star Wars’ program because Gorbachev is talking peace and disarmament and Reagan is being shielded from journalists due to his mishandling of the Reykjavik talks. In another development, the Whitehouse tapes reveal details of the Iran Arms sales and the US president’s Chief of Staff resigns over this ‘Arms for Iran’ scandal. In the Philippines constitutional referendum seems to be going Cory Aquino’s way. Four Western hostages in Beirut are threatened with execution with no word of Terry Waite and 15 plus people are killed in a car bomb and an Iranian envoy is shot dead before Syria invade Beirut at the dissenting government’s request, Amine Gemayle being out of the country. The relief supplies for the Bourj el-Barajneh, West Beirut, Palestinian refugee camp were not getting through until the Syrians relieved the situation. The US regain the America’s Cup under Connors who beat the Aussies.