Colourful and barely legible, please allow me to try and transliterate and explain my diary entries.
Sunday, 22 December 1974 – Went down to Southend. Got nasty cold. TV Planet of the Apes and No Honestly v good
We would have been visiting Jack and Sybil in Southend back then, and or the Swain family. No pictures from the 1970s sadly, but Sybil can be seen in the 1950s picture and several Swains are there in the 1990s one. This 1974 visit would have preceded Garry Steel’s arrival on the family scene.
I don’t think I can blame Southend for the nasty cold – I think the cold must have already been there.
Monday, 23 December 1974 still got bad cold. In all day. TV Yogi Bear feature film, Dad’s Army, Mastermind 19-year-old lost and Horizon on trick photography or V good
The wonder of the web 50 years later enables me to discover that the Yogi Bear movie was named “Hey There, It’s Yogi Bear!” and the 19-year-old Mastermind wunderkind who nearly won was named Susan Reynolds – click here for the Mastermind story. My mum got very excited about that sort of thing back then. I got more excited about the Horizon film about trick photography, but I cannot find anything about that on the web. I seem to recall dad digging out some of his old books to show me more about that sort of thing; I still have those, somewhere in the attic!
Tuesday, 24 December 1974 still unwell. Cough. Home all day. TV Top Cat, Look Who’s Talking, Gulliver’s Travels, Christmas Likely Lads, and Peter Cook & Dudley Moore v good
I must have been googly-eyed after watching that much TV on one day. No wonder I didn’t feel well.
Wednesday, 25 December 1974 – Fair. Got presents. Traditional walk seventh year. TV Way Out West, Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines and Futtock’s Corner [sic].
I think I meant “Futtock’s End” for that last entry. I remember dad finding that little film hilariously funny, as did I. I’m not sure it would work so well on me now that I am older…nor am I sure that I’ll take the time and trouble to find out.
Thursday, 26 December 1974 – Dined at Schmidt’s. TV A Man Called Flint, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Went to Barnetts’ for supper, v good, trifles specially.
I describe at length dining at Schmidt’s…and indeed the traditional walk to which I refer in my Christmas Day 1974 diary entry, in my very first entry in that diary – click here or below. The traditional seasonal walk with my dad must have started when I was six. I do remember it feeling like a very important custom/ritual throughout my childhood.
Barnetts’ in this instance would be the Cyril & Marion Barnett family next door. (Not Jonathan Barnett from school and his family in this instance.) Marion Barnett’s trifle was clearly not a trifling matter.
Friday 27 December 1974 – Sunny. [Fair crossed out] Andrew played and dined here. Doctor Who and Spiders v good.
I’m not sure who advised me to add a comment about the weather to my diary. This might have emerged from a conversation around me not knowing what to write about (hence my seven-month sabbatical during 1974). I didn’t manage to keep up the weather report consistently or for long. I scratched out that world from Boxing Day, so we’ll never ever know what the weather was like in London on that day…oh no, here we go, the internet can dredge up excruciating detail of this kind – click here. As for 27th December, why or when I changed my diary entry on the weather from “fair” to “sunny” is a weird one. This whole “write about the weather in your diary” business feels more like mum’s influence than dad’s.
“Andrew” will have been Andy Levinson, who will have schlepped all the way from No 42 to join us that day!
Saturday 28 December 1974 – Fair. Played alone. Went shopping. TV Generation Game v good and new Doctor Who v good
For those readers who have any televisual connection with that period, the reference to a new Doctor Who should spark the memory buds – here is a short video that showcases and contextualises the arrival of Tom Baker: