October 1983 Part 1

I watched On The Ball, and a snippet of news that saddened me. This was that Steve Coppell has quit football – after seeing the specialist, he has decided that there’s no hope with his knee. That’s tragic for someone who’s made 350 appearances for United and scored nearly 70 goals.

I am terribly upset at this. I can unequivocally say that he was my first hero – sporting or otherwise – and since I first started admiring him, back in 1976 or so, I have never stopped.

Norwich and United drew – and we were three up at one stage.

I am sitting writing this at Hilton Park. We left home soon after half past nine and drove through Alty and beyond to the M6. I must be a right baby, getting really excited about a mere car ride to London.

After we had started up again from Hilton Park we drove beyond Birmingham and left the M6 in order to go onto the M42. We didn’t go far on this, only a short distance and we came off it in order to go through such really exciting places as Henly-in-Arden, Wooten Wawen and Stratford-upon-Avon. Soon after the birthplace of what’s his name, we stopped for lunch and then drove without stopping to Pauline's new college.

We saw absolutely loads of planes landing at Heathrow – even on a Sunday there must be one every two minutes. Pauline queued for ages for her key and hen we were shown up to her room – on the fourth floor. We went for a cup of tea and then unpacked the car. It took us about four trips up and down the stairs. The place reminded me of a cross between my school and St A.

After saying goodbye to Pauline, Daddy and I went to pop in on Auntie Olivia. It was great to see her again. She gave us a very welcome cup of tea. She’s got a nice little bedsit and kitchen – comfortable and neither too big nor too small, and the garden, which faces onto, is really nice.

We drove to Thornton Heath. Auntie Pat and Justin were in. It was wonderful to see them again. We discussed all sorts of things ranging from the Labour leadership battle (incidentally, the so-called ‘dream ticket’ of Kinnock and Hattersley have been elected) to politics in South Africa to English Lit to travels abroad to football. Elizabeth’s brother–in-law and family live on the same road as Frank Stapleton.

I had a brief chat with Ulick - a real sociable fella is Ulick, but I got a few words out of him. I was looking through his singles collection. It’s fabulous. He’s got every conceivable Jam record (Style Council and Bruce Foxton as well).
Daddy and left Auntie Pat at about half past nine and returned home the same way as we had come, with the exception that instead of joining the M40 in Uxbridge, we went through the beautiful Bucks countryside to the North of Gerrards Cross. We stopped in Stratford-upon-Avon for a meal but everything is so touristy and expensive. All the locals seem to dress in Rupert Bear trousers and tartan caps and say things like “Gee Hal, that is real quaint”. Instead we had lunch at Hilton Park.

Today hasn’t been bad. I’m on the M6 near Coventry etc, going along the stretch I haven’t been along since June 1982. When I got to school, Magda told me that her Emma is in the same class as the granddaughter of Sir Matt Busby. She’s very friendly with some of the United players.

On the journey I read The Guardian. We went onto the motorway and stopped for about 20 minutes at Watford Gap. Then we went back onto the M1, but unfortunately, we had a spot of radiator trouble and had to stop on the hard shoulder. Luckily a kindly coach driver came to our rescue. He was travelling empty to the coast to pick up a party returning from France. We had a video laid on – of a Sylvester Stallone film – but I didn’t bother watching it. We came off at Brent Cross (well, it is the end of the M way) and drove down through Cricklewood, Kilburn etc until we came to the city centre.

We drove over Westminster Bridge and came to the Imperial War Museum. We walked around the exhibition of World War 1 for about ¾ hour. It was pretty interesting. In fact it was very interesting, only we had to do a worksheet. Then we went to see a film – All Quiet on the Western Front, an excellent film, very moving and emotive, but the film kept jumping and the sound didn’t match up.

We went around the rest of the exhibition but I ended up in the café, and then in the foyer with Sarah M. We followed the same route home. First I chatted to Clare, then I wrote this, then I pondered a little, and then we stopped at Watford Gap for half an hour. Night fell while we were there, so as we continued, I dozed a little, then had a pretty interesting conversation with Magda and Heneh about family and family problems.

Resolution: Gert, stop going on about fellas.

I went out to Choral Society. It was pretty good, even though Damien did not attend. We sang something by Handel, and a motet by Victoria – O Magnum Miserium.

I watched the News at Ten. There is more than a little scandal surrounding Cecil Parkinson, the golden boy of the Tory Cabinet. After rumours in Private Eye a statement was made through his lawyer late last night that his secretary is expecting his child in January. He will not be resigning from his Cabinet Post. It typifies Thatcher’s Victorian morals – in the Victorian era men used to make their secretaries pregnant and just provide financial support. Mother points out that Maggie can’t really condemn, because she was probably the third party in Denis’ divorce case all those years ago.

Even though he is not being sacked, it realistically means the end to his slimy crawl up the political ladder. No Foreign Secretary-post for Slimy Cecil; no Prime Ministership for Posing Parkinson.

Today has been a funny day. Aviva started bitching to me, saying that there was more skill in darts than football, but I refuted this, because there is not only a matter of shooting a ball in a six foot wide net (ten foot more likely!) but running around beating defenders, and ball control. She said there’s no skill in football any more. I asked her she knew considering that she never watches it, because there is no skill. How can you argue with someone like that?

I got back into my paper; then she started calling me again, saying that I thought I was really ace because I read the Guardian and I've got an O-Level. I didn't like that because I don’t believe that I have any pretensions because I read the Guardian (Okay, it’s a trendy thing to do, but I read it to educate myself). And I've never actually told anyone I got my Maths Grade ‘A’ unless asked. I mean, I guess she’s harking back to the careers lesson when Colleen asked me what grade I’d got, but I’d been very quick to put it down to Mrs N’s teaching. She then accused me of fancying myself as the second Neil Kinnock. I don’t think she realised that I regarded this as a compliment!

Assembly was good. A load of U6 did it. They started with a record of Gloria in Excelsis Deo, and then dressed in woolly hats and scarves, sang the same thing, totally out of tune. They read a few Christmas readings and then we all sang Hark the Herald Angels Sing.

In between History and Maths, Clare and I were discussing Lloyd George and the fact that he would be too big a subject for the history project because he had such a long career. “And” I added, “he had a bit of Cecil Parkinson trouble.”
At lunch I went to a meeting about raising money for a school synthesiser. L6 are already selling Gaelic coffee to the staff and then persuading them to have their cars washed. We’re going to have a barn dance.