raised these points with her this afternoon and although she was very hurt and cried a lot her defence wasn’t very good. I don’t really think she’s got any initiative or perhaps it’s because she can’t do fraction work at all. Bernard and Timbers are both to some extent being malicious, but D thinks that if she wasn’t told to do this or that it is sufficient defence. On the other business, Henderson, I tried not to make a fuss, and I’m convinced that I must not worry her about her wretched little affairs – I am increasingly certain that they are a fixture. I hate it but I can’t do a single thing about it – so I’m going to accept it, expect it, and give up bothering about it. I haven’t got time and neither have we: and I shall have to adjust the idea of training poor D to improve and just let it slide and hope she manages under her own steam. It’s all bloody and all ludicrous, but we must stop having long hideous arguments too.

Thank God I’ve got other things to do. I’m beginning to get the contents of my new poetry book clear in my head and I hope to see Blunden tomorrow and get down to my thesis this week.

It is very strange to read for the first time in 1998 Peter’s diary written in 1937! He was quite right. I was very young, in particular when compared to Peggy who was four years older than I was. But he was completely wrong about my needs. I never minded in the least his having no money and was quite content just to be with him. I didn’t, in fact, have “wretched little affairs” of any kind once we were, as they now say, “an item”, and only one meaningless but comforting one before then. But my reputation had suffered from my first term’s round of tea parties and Oxford was a hot-bed of gossip. Above all, Communist Party members who had been up before 1935 resented me as Peggy’s replacement. She had been a wonderful dedicated organiser, whole-hearted in everything she did. I was just Peter’s girlfriend.

It was a busy year. We collected money for Spain: the Blind Hunger Marchers came through Oxford and spent the night in a church hall. For some reason I don’t remember Peter was “gated” that week, which meant he had to be in his lodgings by 9 pm, so he was not with us when we helped with evening meals and read their letters from home and wrote back to their families for them.

The political climate at universities had changed radically since Peter went up in 1933. We knew that if Franco won in Spain helped by Hitler and Mussolini the second world war would soon follow. However, many in Britain supported Franco and rather approved of Hitler and Mussolini. Ordinary people didn’t travel in those days so they were easy to fool. We students