Just back from a short stay in London. I haven’t been there at Christmas time for many years and apart from the department stores and the main streets, I cannot say that I am very impressed with the Christmas spirit prevailing. Britain seems to have become a very secular country.

There were plenty of Santas of all shapes and sizes, real or not, hovering around in red coats and false beards. Their function is to attract shoppers and encourage spending. But I didn’t see one single crib. Now, no matter your beliefs, Christmas is there because of the birth of Christ or it wouldn’t be called Christmas. But certainly the Santas at least keep the spirit of Christmas alive. It is the most famous story in Western civilisation, a universal story which is still relevant today. Indeed, it is part of Christianity’s DNA. Well, perhaps it was not so attractive to us when we were young and were forced to take part in the Nativity play and one was forced to dress up as a sheep while the golden blonde got to play Mary.

Children are becoming more sceptical I notice and are on the lookout for the string attached to the false beard. Santas with a real beard simply do not have a string around their ears, I heard one little girl remark. Santa at Hamleys looked very real I must say. He was jolly and listening and talking to the children and answering their questions. I even saw a couple of Afro-Caribbean Santas who seemed to be doing well with the kids.

My young one took us to the Wimbledon Theatre to watch Grimms Fairytales, by a very gifted young bunch of actors and actresses. This was very much the Peter Brook notion of theatre. He believed that you can make theatre anywhere, from car parks onwards. The Wimbledon is a spit-and-sawdust theatre and although not a theatre-in-the-round as our St James Cavalier is, it probably takes as many people if not less. There was no numbering of tickets and the five of us arrived half an hour early so that we could have good seats. But we need not have. All the seats were good seats.

The actors obviously loved telling a good story and many of the tails were life-and-death struggles between good and evil, as all good stories are. They played all kinds of instruments and sang their way through many a song. We were transported into another world and loved it and were rather sorry that it had all ended and had to return to reality and out into the cold – which I love. How glorious not to have the sun and the humidity beating on us constantly as it has done in our long, hot summer. Back home to warmth, tea, mince pies and whatever my eldest and her darling husband could provide. Why do we all love eating so much?

This is the time when I catch up with DVDs and my son-in-law said that Capote was worth watching. So we settled down to watching it. I was the only one who watched it through to the end as the other two were soon asleep on the sofa. This is, of course, the story of how two young men set out to murder a ‘nice’ family of four because they had heard that they had a large sum of money around the house. It turned out that they didn’t.

Truman Capote of Breakfast at Tiffany’s fame set out to write the story of these murderers and spent six years researching it.

It turns out that Capote and one of the murderers with whom he built up a relationship over the years, had several things in common – including an alcoholic mother. The young murderer, with his brothers and sisters were brought up in a number of orphanages while Capote was brought up by his aunts. “I feel as if he went out through the backdoor and I, through the front,” says Capote.

I am glad I saw the film though I would never have picked it up myself. There is much thought behind it and it was certainly not mere entertainment. Far from it. There is much food for thought and discussion.

Most often, we assess a person’s actions because that is what we see. We rarely know the person behind the public mask. Capote understood this as he was noted to be a man-about-town, present at every party but privately he was a very different man. He could see through the public mask of the young murderer he had befriended. His book, In Cold Blood, became a bestseller. The young men were hanged but what kind of childhood did they have which brought this to murder? Would they have escaped this destiny had they had a different childhood?

Capote died when not yet 60 of ‘liver disease complicated by phlebitis and multiple drug intoxication.’ A sad and possibly needless end for one of the great writers of the 20th century. One quotable quote which ends the film, though it may not be exact: “More tears are shed for answered prayers than unanswered ones.” Perhaps this is true.

I received a very nice Café Cordina hamper which was placed in a sealed box with golden stars on it. I would very much like to thank whoever sent it and would be very happy if they identified themselves. Many thanks.