Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 31 October 1916 (Creation)
Level of description
Item
Extent and medium
1 Item, paper
Context area
Name of creator
Archival history
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Acknowledges his last letter and asks him about his comrades. Describes making a dress for Clare and the designs on her bowl. Tells him about singing folk songs for Robert Graves during his visit and the suggestion that she should invite a boy called Peter from Charterhouse to tea. Expresses her thoughts on friendship and tells him about a new friend called Mrs Mercer. Describes the issues Mrs Mercer is having with her husband being called up. Tells him she has received his letters and that she will send him a song book. Describes the reading suggestions given to her by Robert Graves. Discusses living arrangements for when he is home. Asks him about how his book is progressing and insists he receive the hot water bottle she suggested.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
System of arrangement
Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
Conditions governing reproduction
Language of material
Script of material
Language and script notes
Physical characteristics and technical requirements
Finding aids
Allied materials area
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Related units of description
Notes area
Note
Robert Graves attended Charterhouse School where Mallory taught before the war. He sang in the choir, where he met an aristocratic boy three years younger, G. H. "Peter" Johnstone, with whom he began an intense romantic friendship. The scandal led ultimately to an interview with the headmaster. Graves himself called it 'chaste and sentimental' and 'proto-homosexual,' and though he was clearly in love with Peter (disguised by the name Dick in Good-Bye to All That), he denied that their relationship was ever sexual. He was warned about Peter's morals by other contemporaries.