Readers’ Letters

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Elizabeth Taylor in Oxford, 1966

Liz’s Oxford blues

SIR: I read with interest David Wood’s article on Burton and Taylor (February issue). At the time, I was a 20-year-old undergraduate at Merton College, when I and a colleague, Alan Watson, got wind of the two stars coming to lunch with the Fellows. We parked ourselves in Fellows quadrangle early on to catch a glimpse. They were some two hours late but Alan and I stuck it out and were duly rewarded.

The most striking memory I have of their visit was the appearance of Elizabeth Taylor. She had wonderful looks and features which, in the flesh, outdid her splendid screen and photographic images. It was really exciting to be so close to a megastar.

We took photos of her (pictured) which display a pensive and wistful demeanour. Could she and Burton have had an early-morning tiff? Surely not; they were only two years into their first marriage, which lasted ten years.

I attended one of the performances of Doctor Faustus at the Playhouse. It was very good, but I did detect a little slurring of words in Burton’s speech.

We all knew he liked his booze, so could he have had a snifter before coming on stage? Yours, Mark Price, Knutsford, Cheshire

Prayers for Ukraine

SIR: Reading AN Wilson’s fascinating article yesterday (November issue) was eerily apposite.

Wilson wrote of Norway then, but we are witnessing Ukraine now. Both these young democracies faced/face a grave threat from a megalomaniac invader who wished/wishes to replace the life of freedom enjoyed by the people of those developing nations with a life of tyranny under an alien power. Norway had to suffer much to regain her precious independence, and it seems that Ukraine is being forced to do the same. Britain offered sanctuary to the leadership of Norway so that, when the war was over, Norway could resume her life of freedom. If only that were possible now.

I fully support the politicians and diplomats who have been striving so strenuously – and so far successfully – to prevent a Third World War (which would almost certainly turn into a nuclear war). The pity is that the innocent people of Ukraine are having to play the role of whipping boy on behalf of the rest of Europe.

I send my prayers and my admiration to the embattled people of Ukraine for their plucky resistance against a powerful, unbalanced bully. Frances Aitken, Littlehampton, West Sussex

The King’s English

SIR: Kingsley Amis would have had at least a few words of complaint about Serena Greenslade’s elocution lesson (April issue). For example, on the subject of how many syllables to give a word (Serena suggests five for particularly); in his The King’s English, Amis says that multisyllable pronunciation of certain words ‘is offensive’. His ‘interesting’ is ‘intruh-sting’, ‘temporarily’ is ‘tempraly’, and he says ‘only a wanker makes three syllables of ‘casual’.

As for dropping consonants, Amis defends doing so in ‘Christmas’ – and what about ‘Wednesday’?

The King’s son Martin has an amusing anecdote in his autobiography Experience in which he shocks his young sons by explaining that he taught himself to say ‘Mon-dee’ and ‘Tues-dee’, because it sounded posh, and it was cool to be posh in the 1970s. Colin Crews, Westow, North Yorkshire

Grammar lessons

SIR: I enjoyed Serena Greenslade’s article (‘How to talk proper’, April issue). I concur with all she says but feel she has left out some very common current grammatical aberrations.

Why do people say ‘sat’ when they mean ‘sitting’? And, likewise, ‘stood’ when it should be ‘standing’? Also very common: ‘were’ when it should be ‘was’. I have noticed these errors even among TV presenters – including a knight of the realm! Surely programme directors should remind them not to do it?

Why don’t people try (just try) to not start sentences with ‘So’ unless it is applicable, like using it instead of ‘Therefore’. Even this is common on the BBC. I must admit to doing it myself, but kick myself when I do!

Another one: ‘wow’. Please try a more original expletive occasionally. A few people on The Repair Shop do actually succeed in avoiding ‘wow’.

Does all this matter? I suppose not in the world order of things, but it irritates some people and it is the small things that annoy. Personally, I like train stations to be referred to as ‘railway stations’, as they always used to be but, hey ho, I can’t argue with the logic – so there it is. James Crawshaw, Battle, East Sussex

Alistair MacLean’s double

SIR: In the early 1970s, Roy Plomley was keen to get the novelist Alistair MacLean on to his programme Desert Island Discs. It was only during an excellent lunch at the Savile Club in London that questioning revealed that the Alistair Maclean who was Mr Plomley’s guest was in charge of the Ontario Tourist Board, not the great novelist. Nonetheless, after lunch, the two set off for the studio and made the recording. Needless to say that programme was never broadcast. Yours faithfully, Charles Halliday, Warminster, Wiltshire

SIR: Matthew Norman (‘Confessions of a gambling addict’, April issue) rightly bemoans the government’s lack of action over personal gambling and the selfdestruction that may result – but personal gambling is only part of the story, as the government is itself highly reliant on a particular part of the gaming industry.

Over different governments, the UK’s prioritisation of capitalism has increased inequality in Britain and around the globe by the implementation of an enterprise culture, an entrepreneurial and monetarist economic strategy. This has led to the City of London becoming a major centre for international capital and investment, something seen by many as a positive entity.

The City is however epitomised by its population of bankers, financial advisers, investment analysts and hedge-fund managers, who seem to be carrying out work of little social or ethical value – gambling with other people’s money is surely morally worse than gambling with your own. Dr Patrick Hoyte, Minehead, Somerset

Speak up!

SIR: Carolyn Whitehead’s Rant (March issue) had me muttering my full agreement and support, growing in volume with every line as I read. Mumbling and whispering actors, wrongly thinking they are sounding more sinister in doing so, are the curse of modern TV dramas, especially for those of us who are hard of hearing.

I hope that someone of influence in the TV world has read the article and takes long overdue action to remedy the problem, but I won’t hold my breath.

I say to Carolyn a very loud ‘Hear, hear.’ Basil Jones, Neath

King Bron of the Boeotians

SIR: As one of the judges for Auberon Waugh’s monthly poetry competition in the Literary Review for more than a decade, I got to know him a little bit, admired him a lot and on one occasion heard him singing his party piece King of the Boeotians (as described by AN Wilson, March issue) in the Academy Club. However, at the risk of adding corrections to corrections, this did not come from Gluck’s grand opera Orpheus but was a song from Offenbach’s much less serious, ribald and satirical comic operetta Orpheus in the Underworld. It starts ‘When I was King of the Boeotians…’ and continues in sad, witty tones describing how his life had been before he died. Regards, John Megoran, Weymouth, Dorset

Wild in the country

SIR: While reading your excellent ‘Growing Old Disgracefully’ supplement (April issue), I read Alan Titchmarsh’s piece on the current rewilding craze. Had I not been in a state of advanced decrepitude, I would have run round the room cheering wildly. People talk today as if no one had ever noticed nature before. As Alan Titchmarsh said, our countryside has always been managed. There is no prelapsarian idyll.

Riding through our local, unmanaged woodland not so long ago, I was constantly blocked by old fridges, burnt-out cars, et al. The meadows, for the most part left to themselves, are full of thistles and ragwort, which throttle the other wildflowers. Stop and think, indeed. Olga Danes-Volkov, Maidstone, Kent

Hull’s time ball

SIR: The informative article by Karen Peck (Olden Life, April issue) omitted to say that probably the last time ball constructed (and also the only one on a municipal building, plus the highest time ball in England) sits atop Hull’s Guildhall.

Hull’s time ball was constructed between 1915 and 1916 for the benefit of ships in the town docks and on the River Hull and Humber Estuary, and has not worked now for more than a century – but recently a restoration programme has been completed and the gilded time ball will start to function again

‘I’m at the perfect age. Old enough to drink too much and young enough not to know better’ later this year, as another feature of the Hull Maritime City Initiative (Kingston upon Hull being Yorkshire’s only port city). Regards, Martin Rispin, for Hull Civic Society

Anthem for rude youth

SIR: Great to read (Postcards from the Edge, April issue) about Mary Kenny’s experience with the young when so often it seems to be doom and gloom.

I am afraid it was not always so. My dear brother, who recently died at the age of 90 after a lifetime of service to others, told me what happened when he offered his seat to a young woman on the London Underground. In no uncertain manner he was told not to patronise her, and to ‘Get yourself a life, you miserable old man.’

He never forgot this and needless to say never gave up his seat on public transport again!

Whatever this woman’s feelings about gender roles, it was pretty unkind to react in this way to what after all was a simple act of kindness that our generation was expected to do. Yours, Ben Oglesby, Beccles, Suffolk

Eating Grandma

SIR: Theodore Dalrymple (‘My audition for Dr Death’, April issue) warns us elderly folk to watch out for relatives who might want to harm – or kill – us.

That put me in mind of Charles Darwin’s voyage on HMS Beagle. In his journal he notes that the natives of Tierra del Fuego, when pressed in winter by hunger, will kill and devour their old women before they kill their dogs. The reason given? ‘Doggies catch otters. Old women no.’

Apparently the old ladies would be suffocated by being held in the smoke of their own fires. Those who ran away into the mountains to escape would be pursued and brought back to their fireside to be cooked and eaten by their own hungry family.

Perhaps we gentlemen should be learning how to catch otters. On the other hand, as grandparents, should we not be ready to make sacrifices to help our grandchildren thrive in the bleak future that awaits them, but not us?

But no Grandma Specials Cookbook, please. Regards, Paul Elmhirst, York