Saturday 5th August 1972

I got my pay today and then packed in the sales job. Although I’ve probably been the most successful of the 24 salesmen it’s not the life for me. 

I guess it’s been useful to do it over the school summer holidays rather than having completely burnt my boats by officially leaving Boroughmuir. I’m not quite sure whether I have really left or not. 

In the afternoon Paul and I watched the International Olympic Meeting from Crystal Palace before the Olympics from Munich start in three weeks’ time - I can hardly wait. However there was a pretty poor turn out of the big stars apart from David Hemery running the 400m hurdles and Dave Jenkins flying around on the last leg of the 4 x 400 metres relay. 

Afterwards Paul and I cycled from Oxgangs to Meadowbank. When we eventually got back to Oxgangs we met Liz Blades’ (6/6 Oxgangs Avenue) pen-pal Lisa who is over from America. She’s beautiful - a blonde girl from California Los Angeles.

Later on I watched Sportsreel. An incredible result in the final of the Drybrough Cup with Hibs beating Celtic 5-3 in the final - brilliant!

Postscript from Liz Blades (6/6 Oxgangs Avenue): 

I just wanted to let you know that it was thanks to my mother that we had these pen-friends. She had corresponded with friends in the US before the war. I'm not sure how that came about. Anyway the family offered to have her to stay once WW2 was declared but her parents were fearful something might happen on the Atlantic crossing and she never made it. I think she always regretted that she had been denied that opportunity. It was she who wrote to churches in the US - I have no idea where she got the contacts - asking for pen-friends for me. My two main contacts were Lisa in Los Angeles who I visited a couple of times and Jeanetter in Cincinatti who I also visited a couple of times. Sadly Lisa died in 1997 (just before Princess Diana). She was an alcoholic and the alcohol abuse had taken its toll and destroyed her liver. Absolutely tragic because she had been the quintessential Californian beauty, bronzed, slim, with long blonde hair. She was also the most gentle and kind person I ever knew. She was only 41 yrs old when she passed away. But if it hadn't been for my mother's efforts I would not have known her at all.