Pseud

Dad got me up and we set out early to pick up my cousin Jenny and go frog-spawning. We were soon tramping down the ancient pack-horse lane through trees towards the canal and Dengates marsh. It stretches between river and canal for a quarter of a mile or so, but it seems less full this year, as if it's gradually draining away. Big trees are springing up in the middle of what was once a deep wide watery marsh.

We traversed the full length with no luck, passing the gypsy camp across the river: an air of squalor, the paper, wood and prepackaged filth of today strewn down the sloping riverbank into the grey water. On the way home we dropped in on Nanna B.

After dinner I had to sit through Dad and Mum’s negative comments about today’s youth and people with weird hair or clothing. “They want rounding up.”

I felt like such a pseud.

At 2.30 me and Dad drove down to Farnshaw, dropping in on Great Uncle Arthur (Watkin), who's a sprightly 82 and in such good shape I was amazed. He could be 62! Dad’s cousin was there and both she and G.U.A. expressed surprise at my resemblance to the young Great Uncle Sidney. . . . I felt a kind of pride at this link with the past, that I'm carrying all that heritage forward. He talks so much, but we managed to get away and Dad bought me a book illustrating the “American Experience” with short stories by Melville, Hawthorne, Saroyan etc.

Andrew's impressed by Rip Rig & Panic; he went to Jim’s in Whincliffe during the afternoon and evening.