They didn't have blogs or the internet forty years ago, indeed my Sinclair ZX81 wasn't capable of much, but here are 30 things I didn't digitally publish at the time. To help you get your bearings I was 19 and most of this is the end of the summer break from university. The second half of the month is far more interesting than the first. Sorry there are no photos.
Sat 1: New month, new season on the TV. New programmes include Saturday Starship (hosted by Tommy Boyd and Bonnie Langford) and Bob's Full House, which was followed by new series of Juliet Bravo and the Paul Daniels Magic Show. Sun 2: The first brussels sprout of the year appears on my plate at dinner, alongside the usual roast beef and roast potatoes. Mon 3: As a member of the student diaspora I am allowed to claim unemployment benefit fortnightly during the summer holidays, so today I sign on in a grim building off the Watford ring road (thankfully since demolished). They pay me £54.10. Pop into Marks & Spencer to return a dress for Mum, and thankfully they don't ask to see the receipt because that had blown out of my pocket while I was crossing the canal. Tue 4: The pound slips to a record low of $1.292 so mortgage rates might have to go up. Stevie Wonder's I Just Called To Say I Loved You reaches number 1. Wed 5: Stamp prices have just risen to 17p first class and 13p second class. I go to the Post Office to buy 26 ½p stamps to stick on a 'Greetings from Croxley' postcard to send to a friend in Southport. Thu 6: Peter Powell presents his last Radio 1 teatime show and I'm mortified to discover that Bruno Brookes is taking over next week. Fri 7: Being a student means being able to watch afternoon telly, which today includes a new show called That's My Dog which I decide is awful. Today's competitors are Honey and Blaze and the mystery celebrity dog owner is Katie Boyle. Sat 8: Being a student means waking up at half past nine and never leaving the house. Breakfast is Coco Pops. Lunch is steak and kidney pie.
Sun 9: My grandmother comes to lunch and stays for tea, and inbetween tells me all about her recent stay in a holiday camp. I wish I'd written down a bit more of what she said. Mon 10: Do an experiment with my radio and discover 22 different local radio stations on VHF (at university it's only 4). Tue 11: I would like to apologise to my parents for waiting until they went out and then ringing a premium phone line, safe in the knowledge that itemised billing had not yet been invented. Wed 12: Go up to London to do a few odd jobs in a small Soho office - sticking labels on envelopes, buying duplicator paper, withdrawing money from the bank, collating membership lists and filling envelopes with magazines. I don't think I ever told the unemployment people about this. Thu 13: A new blond ex-trampoline champion starts as a presenter on Blue Peter. That won't end well. Fri 14: Dad drives me back to Oxford where this academic year I'll be staying in shared digs above an estate agents on the Cowley Road. We spend quite a lot of time on Andy's BBC Micro playing Frogger, Chuckie Egg, Aviator and Pac-Man (called Snapper). Also go to Sainsburys to buy £55 of provisions, because thankfully September 1984 is about to get a lot more interesting.
Sat 15: Ten of us head to Black Prince Wharf to set off on a fortnight's canalboat holiday looping round the south Midlands. Our narrowboat is called Chieftain, a 62-footer, and we spend most of the first evening learning how to steer it and not run aground. Sun 16: It's very much a learning experience through the first locks on the Oxford Canal. I have not been allowed near the steering yet. Spend the evening at the Three Tuns in Kings Sutton where we manage to get into a fracas with the locals which ends with angry puddle-splashing. Mon 17: Up early because we have to be through Claydon Locks by 2pm due to water restrictions. Make it with 20 minutes to spare. Patrick falls in the water in Banbury. Our evening pub is the Butchers Arms in Priors Hardwick, which can only be reached from the towpath through cowpatty fields occupied by bulls. The lure of alcohol spurs us on. Tue 18: I'm on windlass duty up the Napton flight of locks (nine), after which we join the Grand Union and the canal is suddenly much wider. Share our trip down the Stockton flight (eight) with another boat, which Paul unfortunately manages to nudge onto the sill at the Bascote staircase. Wed 19: Maximum lockage, first the 21 locks on the Hatton flight then 20 more through Lapworth. I am trusted on the towpath but not at the tiller. End the day at The Camp in King's Norton, which I realise is fellow student Derek's local so I ring him up from a phone box and we all end up round his place having tea with his parents. Derek has his own Wikipedia page these days. Thu 20: Tardebigge has the longest flight of locks in the UK, 30 in total. We manage to get jammed in the first one but the rest is plain sailing and it even stops raining halfway down. Near Stoke Prior I fall down some steps while getting back onto the boat, get a thorn in my finger and hurt my back. It gets me off lock duty for a couple of days. Fri 21: We're cruising rivers now, first the Avon and then at Worcester we swing onto the Severn. Passing through the lock at Tewkesbury requires paying a £20 toll. Slight panic as twilight approaches and we haven't reached a mooring point (there being no towpath), but the thought of beer spurs us on through turbulent Pershore Lock where we tie up.
Sat 22: Hilary and I have to go shopping in Evesham because we've somehow run out of sausages again. Our Saturday evening mooring point is the basin in the centre of Stratford upon Avon, where Patrick manages to crash the prow of the boat into someone's pristine flowerbed and I still feel bad about this. Sun 23: Apathy is setting in and the towpaths are muddy so it's getting harder to cajole people into doing lock-opening duty. End the day at the Tom O' The Wood pub near Kingswood where I have a toasted cheese sandwich. Then I walk down to the local phonebox and ring home, where I'm thrilled to discover the family has just bought our first video recorder. "You MUST record Threads," I say, "it starts in 30 minutes." Mon 24: The 200th lock of our grand tour leads us out of the Stratford upon Avon canal and back onto the Grand Union. Our headlamp keeps blinking out in tunnels. We do Hatton locks again and get the Bascote staircase right this time. Nobody is impressed when I make cup-a-soups for lunch. Tue 25: We're ahead of schedule so divert to Braunston to see what's there. An enormous boatyard, it turns out, and a tunnel it's too muddy to reach the mouth of. Some of us have tired of spending every night in a pub, the rest return raucously from The Crown and do unspeakable things with ice cubes. Wed 26: The best weather and scenery of the trip as we round the ridiculous meanders of the Oxford Canal at Napton. Slow progress through the locks stuck behind a family with a know-it-all Dad. Win at skittles in the pub, but blimey it's a dark walk back along the towpath afterwards. Thu 27: Sausage stocks now only permit one each for lunch. A lot of the day is spend trailing behind other boats which aren't going as fast as we'd like. The Great Western Arms at Aynho offers video snooker! Fri 28: The end of the trip, after being buzzed by a low-flying plane at Upper Heyford. Nowhere in my diary does it say I steered the boat during the last two weeks, which was probably very wise. My fellow narrowboaters dive back into Oxford's pub and social scene with a vengeance, and I hope their livers have subsequently recovered.
Sat 29: I thankfully escape the post-narrowboat mop-up because I have to attend my cousin's wedding in Chigwell. We've bought them an electric carver. Hymn singing, it turns out, is not one of our family's strengths. The reception is at Limes Hill Hall in Grange Hill, where the buffet ends with lemon sorbet and both Agadoo and the Birdie Song are played at the disco. Sun 30: After a very welcome roast dinner - not sausages again - I settle down with our new video recorder to watch Threads. Wow, it's both fabulous and appallingly grim (and is back on BBC Four next Wednesday if you fancy feeling utterly depressed again). Bed early because I'm signing on again in the morning.
