August 1st

All the years I have lived in the south east there have been attempts to build a huge airport off the Thames Estuary. The first one I remember was the Maplin project; then there was a new Southend Pier and Marina and heliport; then there were ideas of building an airport in the sea itself between Essex and Kent. None have come to fruition. Now the latest proposal is to use the Isle of Grain instead.

The proposers seem to have overlooked the fact that the Isle of Grain is the home of a huge liquid petroleum gas terminal and power station. Indeed the Isle of Grain is key to providing power to the whole of the London area.

The idea of an airport in the Thames Estuary has been considered at huge public cost, again and again, over the last 40 years and each and every time dismissed as over-expensive, not cost effective, and a major catastrophe for wildlife and nature and the area. How many more times do we need to review it and come to the same conclusion?

Missing pilot and aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart

July 31

This morning on RTE Radio 1 a poem by Gerard Smyth about Radio Caroline North was transmitted.

It is not surprising that the radio station is still so fondly remembered by so many people. Radio has never been as good since.

July 25

I’d love to have a photo – but there isn’t one, as far as I know – of me on a train from Nottingham to Carlisle in 1967. It was one of those old wooden carriages with the compartments that had six huge seats with mirrors and leather blinds. The teenage me, long hair and all, shared the carriage with five businessmen in their 50s and 60s. They were all reading The Times and I was reading International Times. The ticket collector couldn’t stop laughing.

At Carlisle I got off the train and the Tannoy went “This is Carlisle Speaking”.

International Times, 1967

24 July

Is this:

a. The control and command centre of the Ministry of Population Control and Torture
b. A room where disc jockeys are lobotomised and zombified
c. The new studio at Capital Radio
d. All of the above?

July 23

I am sorry to learn of the death of yet another talented young person, Amy Whitehouse, who has had well publicised problems with drink and drugs. The cause of her death is not yet known.

A few years ago as I was coming out of the station to go home, a drug dealer with the usual highly amplified bass noise emanating from his car, drove past. Go and sell your drugs somewhere else, I shouted at him. Two older ladies in front of me berated me and suggested that just because he was playing loud music, it did not mean he was dealing drugs. My reply to them was simple: When you hear that noise it’s always drugs.

Drugs ruin our lives and our environment. It is time that we realised that drug producing countries and anyone else involved in their growing, manufacture and distribution have, in effect, declared war on us.

We should regard them as terrorists.

Sonic Nightmare Studios

22 July

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Daily Mail

July 21

I’d hate to be our postman.

He rings our bell every day so we can let him into the apartment block to deliver the mail.

There is a Tradesman’s button, but it is only available for a short time in the mornings when postmen traditionally used to be expected. That was then and we are lucky to see the post before noon, even though we are just 100 yards from the delivery office.

Today Partner got to the entryphone first. “Central Casting,” he said…

The Posties seem to wear their shorts all year round. Presumably because terriers cannot reach them

July 20

Today I heard of the death of record producer Jerry Ragovoy. He was much more than a record producer; he wrote and arranged, conducted orchestras, managed artists, ran record companies, mentored artists from Howard Tate to Dusty Springfield to Dionne Warwick and Irma Thomas. That’s some CV.

One day Warner Brothers were furious – they had an enormous orchestra booked for Sinatra the next day and he had cancelled, leaving them with an expensive session and nothing to do with it, so they phoned around to see if anyone else could use it. Ragovoy said yes and next day – after a sleepless night writing a song and arranging it for a full orchestra – they recorded Lorraine Ellison’s Stay With Me, an all time soul classic.

He started recording doo wop groups in the 1950s and was still making records up to about ten years ago.

Mr Ragovoy died on July 13 of a heart condition. Thanks for the wonderful music, Jerry.

19 July

Walking to the shops this morning, I went past the old Royal Hotel, which has been semi derelict for some time; it looks like some of the frontage is being converted into yet another pub and they have installed new windows from a well known supplier of wooden windows.

I stopped to have a look at them. They were made by the company that was founded by my grandfather, and my father was the managing director of the same window company when I was born.

That was more than sixty years ago. The company may still be going, having changed hands time and time again over the years, but one thing has changed.

The windows look cheap, shabby and of poor quality. I sometimes spot “our” 1950s and 1960s windows in houses and they are still perfectly fit for use, despite being wood, having been made of decent wood of high quality and properly jointed.

These windows would have been rejected by my father and grandfather and consigned to the firewood pile.

So much has changed, and not for the better.

On the other hand, at least they weren’t made in China.

Dog Breed Info

11 July

I don’t know how I did it, or what happened. I was just sitting quietly in a chair listening to the radio when I was suddenly in intense pain. I’d pulled a muscle in my shoulder.

That was Saturday night; Sunday was a day of agony, last night was fits and starts but the pain and swelling have gone down during the day today.

There should be health warnings on chairs; “Don’t relax too much or I might give you a nasty surprise”.

Christine Keeler. Photo: Lewis Morley, 1963