Seventeenth after Trinity
BERT’S VISIT
I got up early this morning and cleared the furniture out of the hall so that Bert’s wheelchair had room for manoeuvre. I made my father a cup of coffee and took it up to him in bed, then I started cooking geriatric coq au vin. I left it on to boil whilst I went back upstairs to reawaken my father. When I got downstairs I knew that I’d made a mess of the coq au vin. All the vinegar had boiled away and left burnt chicken. I was most disappointed because I was thinking of making my debut as a cook today. I wanted to impress Pandora with my multi talents, I think she is getting a bit bored with my conversation about great literature and the Norwegian leather industry.
Bert insisted on bringing a big trunk with him when Pandora’s father picked him up at the home. So what with that and his wheelchair and Bert sprawling all over the back seat I was forced to crouch in the hatch of the hatchback car. It took ages to get Bert out of the car and into his wheelchair. Almost as long as it took me to get my father out of bed.
Pandora’s father stayed for a quick drink, then a pre-lunch one, then a chaser, then one for the road. Then he had one to prove that he never got drunk during the day. Pandora’s lips started to go thin (women must teach young girls to do this). Then she confiscated her father’s car keys and phoned her mother to come and collect the car. I had to endure watching my father do his imitation of some bloke called Frank Sinatra singing ‘One for my baby and one more for the road’. Pandora’s father pretended to be the bartender with our Tupperware custard jug. They were both drunkenly singing when Pandora’s mother came in. Her lips were so thin they had practically disappeared. She ordered Pandora and Pandora’s father out into the car, then she said that it was about time my father pulled himself together. She said she knew my father felt humiliated, alienated and bitterbecause he was unemployed, but that he was setting a bad example to an impressionable adolescent. Then she drove off at 10 mph. Pandora blew me a kiss through the rear windscreen.
I object strongly! Nothing my father does impresses me any more. Had Vesta curry and rice for dinner, during which Mrs Singh came round and talked Hindi to Bert. She seemed to find our curry very funny, she kept pointing to it and laughing. Sometimes I think I am the only person in the world who still has manners.
Bert told my father that he is convinced the matron is trying to poison him (Bert, not my father), but my father said that all institutional food is the same. When it was time to go home, Bert started crying. He said, ‘Don’t make me go back there’, and other sad things. My father explained that we didn’t have the skill to look after him at our house, so Bert was wheeled to the car (although he kept putting the brake of the wheel-chair on). He asked us to keep his trunk at our house. He said it was to be opened on his death. The key is round his neck on a bit of string.
Dog is still AWOL.
Columbus Day, USA. Thanksgiving Day, Canada
Went to the ‘off-the-streets’ youth club tonight. Rick Lemon gave us a lecture on survival techniques. He said that the best thing to do if you are suffering from hypothermia is to climb into a plastic bag with a naked woman. Pandora made a formal objection, and Rick Lemon’s girlfriend, Tit, got up and walked away. It is just my luck to be on the mountain with a frigid woman! RIP Dog.
Full Moon
Had an angry phone call from my grandma to ask when we were coming round to collect the dog! The stupid dog turned up at her house on the 6th October. I went round immediately and was shocked at the dog’s condition: it looks old and grey. In human years it is eleven years old. In dog years it should be drawing a pension. I have never seen a dog age so quickly. Those eight days with grandma must have been hell. My grandma is very strict.
I have nearly got used to the old ladies in the home now. I call in every afternoon on my way home from school. They seem pleased to see me. One of them is knitting me a balaclava for my survival weekend. She is called Queenie.
Did thirty-six and a half press-ups tonight.
Went to the youth club to try yukky, lousy old walking boots for size. Rick Lemon has hired them from a mountaineering shop. To make mine fit I have to wear three pairs of socks. Six of us are going. Rick is leading us.
He is unqualified but experienced in surviving bad conditions. He was born and brought up in Kirby New Town. I went to Sainsbury’s and bought my survival food. We have got to carry our food and equipment in our rucksacks, so weight is an important factor. I bought:
• 1 box cornflakes
• 2 pints milk
• box tea-bags
• tin rhubarb
• 5 lb spuds
• ½ lb lard
• ½ lb butter
• 2 loaves bread
• 1 lb cheese
• 2 packets biscuits
• 2 lb sugar
• toilet roll
• washing-up liquid
• 2 tins tuna
• 1 tin stewed steak
• 1 tin carrots
I could hardly carry my survival food home from Salisbury’s, so how I will manage it on a march across the hills I don’t know! My father suggested leaving something out. So I have not packed the toilet roll or cornflakes.
Have decided not to take my diary to Derbyshire. I cannot guarantee that it will not be read by hostile eyes. Besides it won’t fit into my rucksack.
Must finish now, the mini-bus is outside papping its hooter.
Eighteenth after Trinity
8 PM. It is wonderful to be back in civilization!
I have lived like an ignoble savage for the past two days! Sleeping on rough ground with only a sleeping-bag between me and the elements! Trying to cook chips over a tiny primus stove! Trudging through streams in my torturous boots! Having to perform my natural functions out in the open! Wiping my bum on leaves! Not being able to have a bath or clean my teeth! No television or radio or anything! Rick Lemon wouldn’t even let us sit in the mini-bus when it started to rain! He said we ought to make a shelter out of nature’s bounty! Pandora found a plastic animal-food sack so we took it in turns sitting under it.
How I survived I don’t know. My eggs broke, my bread got saturated, my biscuits got crushed and nobody had a tin-opener. I nearly starved. Thank God cheese doesn’t leak, break, soak up water or come in a tin. I was glad when we were found and taken to the Mountain Rescue headquarters. Rick Lemon was told off for not having a map or compass. Rick said he knew the hills like the back of his hand. The chief mountain rescuer said that Rick must have been wearing gloves because we were seven miles from our mini-bus and heading in the wrong direction!
I shall now sleep in a bed for the first time in two days. No school tomorrow because of blisters.
I have got to rest my feet for two days. Doctor Gray was very unpleasant: he said that he resented being called out for a few foot blisters.
I was very surprised at his attitude. It is a well-known fact that mountaineers get gangrene of the toes.