This month; Della starts school, Debbie gets her pony and Daniel does well at school and has a great narrow-boating holiday.
This month; Della starts school, Debbie gets her pony and Daniel does well at school and has a great narrow-boating holiday.

A month that started mild but had some cold and frosty days later which brought on normal family coughs and colds with Debbie’s the worst; compensated by me buying her a pony and some more tack. Della successfully started school, Daniel revelled in his school narrow-boating holiday with friends and passed his French ‘O’-level GSE and, apart from nice family events, I took Diana for a London shopping and leisure break. After the novelty of settling my new Koi carp into my new conservatory pond and me over-feeding them we were overcoming their health issues. I managed to complete a few more chapters of my Little Paxton History book this month, after overcoming AppleMac problems and mastering AppleScan issues and negotiations with printers were advanced. My local community work was developing beyond Parish and District Council meetings, as I persuaded the Village Hall Committee to provide changing facilities for the village sports teams, made progress on local road-naming disputes, and helped SLD colleagues to get local Focus newsletter campaigns up and running such that our publicity profile was sharply increased. The Stock exchange is soaring despite record interest rates, rising inflation and labour disputes but I stick to cash, as mortgage rates rise to 13 ½%. The New Year’s Honours list was packed full of knighthoods for Thatcher’s political and business cronies and, as private medicine is encouraged, the NHS structure is challenged with the planned abolition of Local Council Regional Health Authority involvement and for hospitals to opt out of the National Health Service. Investigations continue into two air crashes, with Lockerbie’s being traced to a bomb. Fugitive Viraj Mendis was brutally captured from Church sanctuary and deported to Sri Lanka despite demonstrations and parliamentary objections. The US shot down two unarmed Libyan jet fighters in retaliation for Lockerbie, but the USSR started withdrawing tactical nuclear weapons from Eastern Europe and a chemical weapons ban was signed Paris by 150 countries. Both the US and USSR suffered critical earthquakes and terrible Atlantic gales sink a freighter. Japanese Emperor Hirohito died after a 70-year reign.

After a mild start to the month with a little rain, it became cold and frosty on most days with a little sunshine but also some fog when it was not windy; but this compared with the record minus 86°F cold weather emergency in Alaska! A generally healthy month but, predictably, I was suffering from a headache after two very late nights, with a cold coming on later. A successful visit to the dentist albeit was marred by my referral to their hygienist the cleaning work. My Mum has resumed therapy, but Dad’s ear seems to be slow to heal up after his skin treatment. My daughters, Debbie and Della also contracted colds which, at first, were not quite bad enough to miss school but then Debbie’s turned into a chest infection before she started coughing nicely to clear it. Debbie had a notable month as we bought her a pony, Sundance, which I financed but got her to share with Lisa Drake, from our village, so that the care of it would not interfere with her schoolwork. This was all prompted by the news that Offord Riding School was due to close. The establishment remains as a ‘self-service livery’ and the girls will now alternate days there and enjoy him together at the weekend.

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I heard from Fiona’s father, a councillor colleague of mine, that his landlord had some residential development plans for the stables and, from her, that Sundance would come with his tack and was felt to be a very sound and suitable pony for Debbie and Lisa to ride. After meeting with Mr and Mrs Drake and their daughter Lisa, we agreed grooming and riding schedules for Sundance. The girls joined me with Fiona for a trip to the Alconbury Weston Saddlery to buy some more tack for Sundance, and I bought an old military chest, some paint and some stencils, for its renovation so that their riding kit and tack could be stored in at Offord. It was not all plain sailing; Sundance took a while to settle in his new bridle after losing his old martingale, Debbie had to learn how not to get her leg bitten by Sundance and the dangers in the vicinity were all too apparent after there had been two accidents in one week involving one of their horses and cars and the first horse had to be put down, which is a worry for riding in the area.  

It was also a landmark month for Della as she started Little Paxton school. Diana was worried sick about taking her but she avoided all of her worst fears and settled in well and, by the end of the month, the children were going off to school with a minimum of fuss. After this, Diana now had the time to empty the playroom and get down to some decorating. Daniel and Stephen had their very-enjoyable narrow-boating holiday with Kimbolton School and, once back, I took Daniel and his friends Gary and Stephen to the London Earls Court boat show where we saw some beautiful motorboats from Brooms and Princess but found they were to wide and high for our river. Generally, his friends are very grateful and respectful, but another day was overshadowed by three of Daniel’s friends arriving late for Sunday lunch and being sent home without it! Daniel gets an O-level equivalent pass in French this month. I also had the chance to take Diana away for a London break, staying at the Swiss Cottage Holiday Inn, arriving in our nice clean Range Rover, having dropped the girls off at Di’s parents’ house in Bar Hill and then driving down the M1 to Holborn. We shopped in the High and Mighty sale for some clothes, Selfridge’s, John Lewis for other items and even viewed the opening day of the Harrods sale. Our shopping in Oxford Street were going well until I had the onset of a migraine, having been burning the candle at both ends after affectionate night and early start but I recovered after a rest.  We then visited Dillon’s bookshop for a book on tropical plants by the Kew Gardens curator, and other publications, and then actually visited Kew Gardens looking at tropical conservatory plants before finishing at Piccadilly Circus to see the John Cleese film, ‘a Fish called Wanda’. We enjoyed our bath and hotel restaurant breakfast, before we left for Chelsea to check out a London garden centre and a garden ornament specialist, buying a tatty banana plant. Diana went to Cambridge and chose some furniture for our lounge and she and I reluctantly attended the SLD wine and cheese event one evening but this and our London outings revived out love life! I had to take our coloured lights down at the end of the Christmas period, and it was a busy period for me, but I still found time to spend with my daughters before school. There were plenty of family outings as I took the girls for a trip to Willington garden centre and gave the girls lunch at ‘Kelly’s Kitchen’ on the way back. There were regular trips to the St Neots Beefeater for lunch, where I complained about their smoking policy but then they arranged a non-smoking area for our lunch after my intervention.  We attended a lovely St James’s church service with the choir in their new ropes and sun shining through the south windows.

I was experiencing teething problems with my Koi carp taking a while to settle into our new pond. I had been observing our Koi daily, often taking our morning drinks into the conservatory, feeding them regularly and started worrying about our smallest Koi carp– the Doitsu Sanke – which laid motionless on the bottom. In retrospect, I think that we had been over-feeding them as I found high levels of nitrate in the pond which damaged their gills and made them susceptible to a possible dropsy and gill fluke infection, for which we tried feeding them with Steryzine and antibiotic-soaked pellets. By controlling the food and allowing time for the biological filtration bed to start working, the nitrite levels fell dramatically but that was not before one of the fishes had died. I was swabbing Mercurochrome daily onto the Ohgon’s back as its infection wound struggled to heal up. We got conservatory building regulations approval this month and I mastered the underfloor heating controls and bought a fiddle leaf fig plant and coconut seedling from a garden centre. Despite the fish getting priority, I still had to feed the ducks and doves.

I have made very good progress on my book but need to keep on it. This work was over-shadowed by the initial computer problems of mastering the new AppleScan scanner, getting repair help from the Apple centre and overcoming an Apple Mac software problem with help from my Cambridge colleagues. I was then able to scan more documents for three history chapters; progressing work on my Manorial Chapter (finally completing the relevant charts and a diagram detailing its development) and my chapter on Little Paxton church with its clerics, poor laws and charities which I could then take round to the Rev Peter Lewis for his comments. I made a complete backup of my computer data, sorted out files for my next Little Paxton history chapter on the Pre-Enclosure period and was scanning further images for my Paxton Park chapter. I evaluated my printing quotations and, after calls from several printers, was persuaded to adopt a smaller book page size to save some £1,000 in cost! Unfortunately, I then had to spend a day transforming the format of the first five chapters of my book but also incorporated comments from the Norris Museum and others.

My contribution to local affairs continued with Little Paxton and Southoe Parish Council meetings, a good Village Hall Committee meeting where we agreed to provide changing facilities for the village sports teams, and I was asked to be a Trustee. A productive Environmental Services Committee meeting with recommendations overturned so that St Ives bypass will now be named Harrison Way after a former long-serving Liberal Councillor. I had been receiving representations from the Samuel Jones MD, George Dean, about his company’s planning application and then had three local newspaper journalists interviewing me accordingly and I championed another issue which led to a photo opportunity with the Ramply’s as I mounted a campaign for getting Rampl(e)y Lane correctly named after the Ramply family’s Jack. I had a post meeting chat with Ross McKay who may come across from the Conservatives. About electioneering, I had SLD colleagues visiting to work on a new FOCUS Newsletter for my Paxton Ward which, once printed, were farmed out to delivery helpers. An evening SLD committee meeting was a bit shambolic but Percy, Pat and Michael came around for a working session for the forthcoming issue of Buckton County wards Focus.  We then delivered leaflets to Southoe and outlying houses, liaising with constituents as I introduced Percy Meyer one evening for a meeting with residents. After Percy and Michael progressed local SLD publicity, the triumphant Percy felt he was making progress in his County Council election plans as a result of all this.

In other local news, Nigel arrived for coffee one day and discussed his plans for moving to the West Country and Mrs Eaton next door has left home as the latest local marital separation. Elsewhere, the stock exchange has been surging ahead and the City seems pleased with events and turns a blind eye to the balance of payments deficit high interest rates and soaring inflation. There was a surge of stock exchange valuations with investors fearing that they miss the recovery. I may have missed any such opportunity as I have chosen to retain large cash balances, earning good interest rates. Either the rest of them are wrong, or I am, but at least I can console myself with the high mortgage rates rise to 13 ½% such that I can take advantage of building society interest rates without the accompanying risk.

500 jobs go at Dagenham after Ford Motors vindictively transfers the Sierra production to Belgium after last February strikes, Britain’s GEC is an overseas takeover target. Following the last government repression of labour unrest, 24 police officers have been served summonses for perjury arising out of the Wapping Murdoch newspaper dispute; opposition leaders criticised the Prime Minister at a Cheltenham GCHQ rally over the removal of their trade union rights and Wandsworth prison officers were striking and their inmates rioting despite seven hours of talks. The New Year’s Honours list was packed full of knighthoods for Thatcher’s political and business cronies and Britain’s outgoing European Commissioner, Lord Cockfield, has been openly critical of Thatcher’s lack of commitment to the European cause. Back home, yet more controversial plans are announced for hospitals to opt out of the National Health Service and to abolish Local Council Regional Health Authority involvement whilst offering tax incentives for private practice and to give hospital managers authority over consultants’ work and to encourage private health schemes and, unconvincingly Kenneth Clarke refutes a government NHS privatisation rumour. Junior hospital doctors are being chronically overworked yet, controversially, the government plans to make GPs responsible for budgetary control, A private London hospital has been exposed paying for living kidney donors. A row has broken out over moving Social Security jobs out of London with staff protesting and Edwina Currie has finally retracted her egg salmonella statement.  As the search for Lockerbie bodies and survivors continued,  Transport secretary Paul Channon flies back from his West Indies holiday into a hail of criticism for being absent in the aftermath of the air crash as the search for debris goes on and then the investigation into the Lockerbie Pan Am air disaster has found that a bomb made of plastic explosives was detonated in the No 1 cargo hold. There has been another serious crash, killing 22 people at the East Midlands airport after an aircraft engine fire. The M1 air crash investigation found that the working engine may have been shut down in error and air crash investigators have determined that all airlines must check Boeings engines fire warning lights. More Boing air-liner faults cause safety concerns. Journalists have exploited security weaknesses at Heathrow and Gatwick, The Guildford car bombing convictions are going to the Court of Appeal, and an outrageously violent action by 50 police officers broke down church doors before cutting away a Sri Lankan refugee from a radiator, who had sought sanctuary, caused a crowd demonstration outside Manchester police station and a row in the House of Commons. Then the deportation of fugitive Viraj Mendis was lost in the Court of Appeal and 1,000 protested in Manchester after his deportation to Sri Lanka.  In contrast, a convict accidentally released from prison by ‘administrative error’ knifed a young woman to death in the London Underground. In other news, revelling yobs caused problems overnight in New Year celebrations and 4,000 drink driving offences were detected over the Christmas holiday period, barristers look like losing their monopoly of audience in the High Courts to solicitors,  Sir Geoffrey Howe announces his Gibraltar troop reductions with Britain halving the number of soldiers based at the garrison. Sizewell want a third nuclear reactor and King’s Cross station will be the preferred second terminal for the Channel Tunnel trains. A mining tragedy was averted by actions of the pit manager, an IRA grenade attack kills an RUC officer in South Tyrone and the £40 million bank robbers were sentenced to 22 years.

A special Lockerbie air crash memorial service was televised in the US and the UK but, despite the officiating minister calling for justice not retaliation, news soon emerged of the US shooting down two unarmed Libyan fighter planes and a mounting crisis followed. The UN Security Council debate heard a Libyan complaint about the US shooting down two of their planes and, with Gadaffi seeking talks with President-elect Bush, the US has cancelled further aerial manoeuvres off the Libyan coast. Also in the US, Col Oliver North was under trial and aimed to call former US president Reagan to the stand for cross-examination before prosecutions were dropped thus avoiding implicating US Presidents Reagan and Bush, which paved the way for the dramatic inauguration of US President George Bush to take place. Six men have survived a month after an American earthquake by eating canned fruit in a cellar. A further earthquake in the USSR killed up to 1000 and buried a complete village, the USSR starts withdrawing tactical weapons from Eastern Europe and announced plans to destroy chemical weapons and, following suite, East Germany announces Armed Forces cuts. US Secretary Schultz calls for sanctions against chemical weapon countries and a declaration banning chemical weapons followed and signed in Paris by 150 countries. Riot police have broken up a protest in Prague. Terrible Atlantic gales have sunk a freighter another ferry capsizes off of Brazil, hopelessy overcrowded. 100 passengers were killed when two trains crashed in Bangladesh. Japanese Emperor Hirohito died after a 70-year reign. As the South African Premier, PW Botha, had to step down after a stroke, the ICC bans cricketers going to South Africa despite threats of legal action. Players participating in professional sports in South Africa will now face an ICC ban of up to 5 years.