PA'S GHASTLY PIPE

And the dreadful Balkan Sobranie

W E D N E S D A Y,  1 6  A U G

The sun broke through at times but on the whole it was rather miserable. The house was cold all day.

Got a letter at last from Lucy - she’d lost my address. Also cards from Tig and Martha. Starting writing to Lucy, mostly about the concert - then she rang me up! She doesn’t know whether she’s going to see Frédéric or not, he hasn’t written yet.

I put poppers onto my two new sleeveless sweaters so the bra straps don’t show. Listened to Radio Caroline - Robbie Dale was on. Honestly, he overdoes the love bit, he loses the whole point by being sloppy. Then read the New Statesmen. It's terribly interesting, but so high-brow I don’t understand it.

Mummy thinks Daddy needs to clear his throat too often nowadays. He says he's going to cut down on his pipe. He'd better - we all hate the smell of Balkan Sobranie.

Dutch Grandma phoned about presents for my birthday, but spent most of the time going into detail about the problems she’s had – Grandpa’s eye, John’s house!

I’m not really looking forward very much to tomorrow. I don’t want to be 17 one bit.

Johnny Walker (R) and Robbie Dale (L) stayed with Radio Caroline up until the day the ships were towed away, in March 1968