Forty-Two Years Ago: Sunday, 22 July 1984
There is no 22 July 1976 in my Collins Five Year Diary. I was staying with my father in Appleby. I cannot say what I did on the 22nd or 23rd. I’d left my Five-Year Diary in Gosforth. I was fourteen (nearly fifteen!).
At some point, I got bored and took the train via Appleby and Carlisle back to Newcastle. That was 1976.
It now feels like wilful negligence missing out a day in what is supposed to be a daily Diary, something that you keep for five years. Surely I could have found a sheet of paper, made a few notes, and copied them into the Diary when I returned. But no. After keeping a daily diary faithfully for perhaps eighteen months—and certainly every day since 1 January 1976—I simply allowed several days to lapse. 1975 failed to be the first year I’d get every day covered; 1976 I’d got through to the end of July. I’d have to try again in 1977. I keep trying. 1977 draws a blank at some point. What about 1978? We’ll have to see.
The gap bothers me like a missing tooth, so I am approaching it as a dentist might: filling the empty space with a spare day. I have reached, at random, eight years forward into the diaries from the 1980s and extracted Sunday, 22 July 1984.
By then, the Five-Year Diary had given way to a hardback notebook, and I was writing a full page each day. In the normal course of events, my 1984 diaries won’t be published until 2034. That’s if I stick with this ‘Fifty Years On’ idea. Don’t hold your breath.
Everyone headed for Ullswater, courtesy of our stepmother, to a large extent. She was a good one for rallying people to a cause – a day out on Ullswater. She may have given us all a lift, though I could drive by then. She and Dad were taking his boat out from the sailing club. More likely I took Dad’s Rover Vitesse.
Things did not start well. My younger sister and I argued because she wasn’t wearing the glasses she desperately needed. She was as blind as a bat—unable to see much beyond the ends of her hands—yet she was about to spend the day falling off a windsurfer into Ullswater. Perhaps she didn’t want to lose or break them. Perhaps it was vanity. I could see only the necessity of keeping them on.
Whether I wore glasses myself by then, or contact lenses, I cannot remember. Perhaps I only needed glasses for driving and going to the theatre.
Her closing put-down is worth remembering:
“Okay, you’ve said your bit.”
It sounds like a familiar phrase, used to close an argument without conceding it. I had said what I thought. She would decide for herself. Say no more. So I said no more.
I could already windsurf, so I was there to mock or encourage.
There was bugger all wind at Glenridding.
The morning was spent on the simulator, not entirely aided by urges to go for a wee and Bess going mad. Bess was my sister’s first dog, a lovely all-black sheepdog. She barked, wanted to join in and got under everybody’s feet. I’m sure she had been tethered to a tree on a long lead, which merely gave her a larger radius in which to create trouble.
Each instructor offered a different gem of advice: where to place your feet, how to hold the wishbone, the direction of the wind and its position on your back, how it shaped the sail, and so on.
All fun, really.
We then went off to the pub in Glenridding. I had a Pilsner and blackcurrant, which was a new one to me: a shandy made with lager and blackcurrant juice instead of lemonade.
We met up with Dad and my stepmother for a picnic. This was substantial: meat, booze and lots of choices. Whether my stepmother had put it together herself or asked Mabel, the castle cook, to assemble it, I do not know. Either way, it had the generous excess of an Appleby picnic.
Back at Glenridding, the gang suited up in blue wetsuits and purple lifejackets supplied by the windsurfing school.
I had my own wetsuit, designed specifically for windsurfing. It was a bit flash, with lighter material around the arms, more like a wetsuit jacket than the standard black rubber casing. I was not only the one who already knew how to windsurf; I looked equipped to prove it.
There was a slow start due to a mix-up with the boards and the non-existent wind. The three of them—my sister and her two friends—got wet pretty quickly.
I circled them like a large irritating insect. I couldn’t have gone far had I wanted to. There was barely enough wind to scatter a fart.
I note how pretty one of my sister’s was. She had a boyfriend. I had a girlfriend. She was not looking for anyone, and neither was I. I did not flirt with her or attempt anything. It was simply a passing note for the diary. Attraction did not amount to intention. It was no more than the recognition that someone was attractive, filed away without consequence. Just saying.
Back at Appleby, Dad’s goddaughter and her boyfriend had shown up. They were obviously feeling slightly out of place as we continued our games in the swimming pool—jumping in, splashing one another, perhaps throwing a ball around.
Anyone coming to stay in a castle for the first time was bound to feel somewhat in awe of it. The reality was less grand. Yes, it was a castle, but it was also a management training centre, a company headquarters, a collection of offices, a visitor attraction, a rare-breeds survival centre and a group of historic buildings that were open to the public from Easter through to the end of the summer holidays.
Staying there is not like being welcomed into an ordinary family home. Guest bedrooms were in an entirely separate wing. There were no keys. People simply came and went. Usually, someone was around somewhere. If not, one hung about until somebody appeared.
It was like being put up in a bed-and-breakfast rather than a hotel, except that the corridors were medieval, the distances considerable, and the family sometimes difficult to locate.
We had a champagne celebration to mark my second-class Oxford degree.
Dad liked to produce champagne for all manner of occasions. He had a cellar of drinks and was particular about choosing the right bottle. Nothing vintage, I am sure, but something he considered appropriate to the achievement.
I had tried for no more and expected less.
I had been busy every moment of my undergraduate life at Oxford, though for much of the time I’d not done much academic work. I had established a student video production group and started Oxford Television News, which we distributed to colleges on VHS cassettes. I was paid to record theatre productions, political meetings and other events. I acted too. Oxford had given me an education, though not necessarily the one assessed in Finals.
A friend from Oxford phoned, and we had a chat. Our futures both were in London.
We ate in the dining room. It could seat twelve. The conversation turned to student life, something nearly all of us had in common. My older sister spoke about her own experience with a keen eye on me, as though worried I might puncture the facade. She had twice left her university course without graduating. But perhaps facade is too cruel a word. She’d been to university. She had lived parts of student life.
We played croquet on the lawn directly below the Keep, followed by a sauna, then more booze around the pool.
This became the pattern of the summer. The sauna could be turned on at any time. The pool was heated by solar panels on the roof of the north-west wing: water was pumped upwards and passed through broad sheets of black rubber before returning to the pool warmer. Solar heating by hosepipe and gravity—very analogue.
At midnight, my older sister joined us, not wanting to be left out.
We were three twenty-year-olds, me at twenty-two and my older sister at twenty-six. I cannot remember whether we were still sitting beside the pool or had moved into the Great Hall.
Leave a Reply