WITH HIS FAILURE TO be elected as an ‘Independent Labour’ candidate,the cuckoo had fallen out of the nest, and Graham, still only forty, was now faced with the potential demise of his political and literary ambitions, and the continuing burden of huge debts. Pritchett wrote that he had been squeezed out of politics by overwhelming, dull conformity:

He was thus labelled ‘an aristocratic minority, a nuisance who, in due process of English tolerance, would shortly graduate and become legend, as a pelted [sic] crank gets a knighthood or ascends to the Lords’.

This was undoubtedly a major low point in Graham’s life, but virtually nothing has been written about it. The two men who had his ear in later life, and who might have given an insight into his state of mind, his biographers – Faulkner West and Tschiffely – remained silent. After describing Graham’s defeat, Faulkner West moved on to his friendships and literary output, while Tschiffely glossed over the entire period and simply recorded: ‘Time often hung a little heavily on Don Roberto’s hands, especially in the long spells of rain which visit the District of Menteith.’However, Graham and his wife suffered considerable hardships trying to keep their home, and the painter John Lavery recorded a particularly revealing incident:

While Tschiffely only conceded Graham’s tendency towards the morose, Benn wrote that along with Hardie, Graham and his wife were unrecognised manic-depressives, although she did not substantiate this.