A good reaction from Percy who visited me to review my election literature designs and then an entertaining visit from my local Mafioso descendent with local and Sicilian news before a welcome call from SLD guru Bill Walston who will lay out my pamphlets. Further avalanches in Austria killed seven more people as hotels collapse under the onslaught; South African church leaders defy the ban on free expression, Israeli ministers are soul-searching on their future occupation of the West Bank and opposition leaders are enjoying the pre-budget tiff between Thatcher and the Chancellor Lawson
After a very, very, late night (pasting up all that artwork) I slept pretty well and lay in a little. I wrote yesterday’s journal whilst Di made the breakfast and then filled in yesterday’s news from the teletext afterwards. Worked hard for a couple of hours on more artwork for a window bill, ‘out’ leaflet and had just done the ‘knock up’ leaflet when Percy Meyer dropped by and I could give him the selection of copies with the other information that he needed for the canvassers. He was most impressed and left quite motivated. More work before and after lunch on the ‘knock up’ slips and then Peter Bernetti of Cock Audley cycled over with his notes on the local history and we sat and talked for a couple of hours, whilst I made notes. It seems that his father was an illegal immigrant from Sicily, the head of a Mafia family, Castagnoli, and was an expert counterfeiter and engraver! He evidently had six passports, languages and identities (his specialty!) and was buried illegally on the farm by Peter. The people I meet in the course of my researches!
Had a call later from Bill Walston, one of the regional SLD men, who has undertaken to do my layout for the election addresses. I only worry now that we are duplicating effort. This concerns me, not if his artwork is better than mine when only my labour is lost, but if his is not as good, I will have to be careful as to how to go about refusing it. Later on tonight I cleared up the mounting mess in my office, tore up all of my rejected paperwork into small pieces, to preserve confidentiality, then decided to rest a while and catch up on today’s journal. The news tonight is of another series of avalanches in St Anton in Austria that have killed a further seven people. Hotels at this large ski resort were collapsed as a wall of snow engulfed them. Church leaders in South Africa have made defiant speeches at a special church service, after all the last channels of free expression and political activity were made illegitimate. Israeli Cabinet Ministers are agonising over whether to give up the West Bank and public opinion is evenly divided. Two days before the Budget, the opposition are making hay over the apparent rift between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister over exchange rate policy and the value of the pound against the Deutschmark.