Collects the crackers from 1970-1979, the first decade, of prose and poetry that the author sent to friends each year as a Christmas card.
'Then a strange thing happened. In the splendour of their new environment, the various passages of prose and poetry that I had copied out seemed to take on a new corporate identity. What had started off as a pile of literary odds and ends, to be added to at the whim of the moment, suddenly became a collection, something to be nurtured and cultivated and cared for. ... it was my commonplace book'
