When Peter and I had a few minutes free from politics, work and sex, one of our pleasures was to browse in a record shop. You were then able to take your chosen records into a little listening room to see if you really liked them. Every so often we felt that we should actually buy one as a kind of “rent” for our pleasure, but we had no gramaphone, so we had to give them to Tony, one of our friends, who did have one, and let us listen to them sometimes. One in particular that gave us a lot of pleasure was called “Little Buttercup”.

I mustn’t give the impression that we actually spent 24 hours a day together. I did attend lectures and tutorials and had long, late discussions with my friends in St Hughs. Peter was a member of the Cole Group – a select group of undergraduates and graduates who met in GDH Cole’s rooms for learned discussions to put the world to rights.

We went together to see Margot Fontaine dance Swan Lake, and a famous male dancer whose name escapes me dancing practically naked in the Rite of Spring. Cinemas in Oxford often showed foreign films. We saw “M” with Peter Lorré and “The Testament of Dr Mabuse” – brilliant but terrifying old German films (pre-Hitler). There was a great difference of opinion among students – should we sit down for “God Save the King”? Most of us compromised and either half stood, or rushed out just before the end of the film, thus missing the climax.

From Peter’s diary, 1937:

New Year’s Resolutions

1. Write something every day.

2. Specifically, novel to be finished by March. Twenty poems to be ready by mid-February.

3. Refrain, under whatever provocation, from narking at all at D re men, because if wrong, unjustified: if right useless.

4. Manage money to enable me to give D occasional v. good time – e.g. splash dance in London, theatre

5. Pay off debts as soon as poss. esp. D.

6. Take up pipe again.

7. Start swimming soon, and play tennis in spring.

8. Make good start on thesis next term.