DECEMBER 1937

December is a month of Christmas preparations and family drama. Christmas shopping becomes a social affair (a visit with Mary Lucy to the Caledonian Market, an excursion to Regent Street, another trip to the Market with Alan and Catherine), and Graves indulges in his passion for gift-giving. He notes the details of his purchases, including two ostrich eggs for Alan at 1s. 6d. (apparently not the sum total of ostrich eggs for Hodge, who will receive another one from Karl).

Though time for serious work is short this month, Graves finishes the draft of the last chapter of Belisarius just before Christmas. We also learn that Alan's letter on Auden has been turned down everywhere it was submitted. Riding delivers a paper entitled Positive Capability at the English faculty library at Cambridge to an audience of between 60 and 70 people. She is still working on the Letter Book (The World and Ourselves); she completes the last section, leaving only three recommendations to write. She also completes a draft of a poem about Christmas.

Mary Lucy stays for the first few weeks of December. She, Graves and Riding discuss her husband John, whom Graves describes as violent and homicidal. A few days after Mary leaves the couple's flat, she calls from Morecombe to let Graves and Riding know that she has left John with the two children and is now in Cumberland with Nan and Wilfred. Graves talks with the police and a solicitor about threatening letters that he and Riding receive from John Lucy. Maisie suggests having John Lucy certified as insane.

In visits with family, Jenny's debt problems once again take centre stage. Graves offers to write her a letter of introduction to Noel Coward in the hope that he will give her an audition. Although she is given the audition, Coward needs someone who can sing; Jenny doesn't make the cut. Catherine, David, Nancy and Sam (whose hearing is deteriorating) all visit this month as well. David finishes Christmas exams at Cambridge, and family and friends celebrate Amy Graves' birthday on 15 December. But the situation with Jenny soon becomes more of a concern: a few days before Christmas, both of Graves' brothers call to inform Graves that Jenny's name has been linked to one David Willmer, who has committed a violent robbery with three others at a hotel in Knightsbridge. Graves assures them that Jenny has had no recent contact with the man.

Despite these upsets the year ends on a high note: Graves and Riding welcome the new year with Honor, Gordon, Alan, Beryl, James and Mary Reeves, Sally and Richard Chilver, a few others, and a bottle of Domecq brandy.

There is one enclosure this month: a newspaper clipping - Fined For Strike Meeting Speech - about another Robert Graves fined for threatening words at a meeting in Bethnal Green.