No disqualification
Sir: I have always believed that an author should accept with equanimity the bouquets and brickbats flung by reviewers. But PhillP Warner's comments on The Bitter End (27 March) do, I feel, merit a response. I would be the first to agree that inconsistencies M the spelling of place-names are irritating. Here I must plead nolo contendere: I alll the exasperated victim of calamitous editing which has, among other things, deprived me of my daughter and credited me with a son. It is, though, your reviewer's final paragraph which causes me some bewilder- ment. Philip Warner, himself a veteran of Singapore, points out that neither I nor mY co-author was there at the time, as if this in some way disqualified us from commenting on the dismal episode. Historians would have a thin time of it if they could only write about events of which they had per- sonal knowledge. No such disadvantage dissuaded Mr Warner from writing about the Crimean War or the Battle of Loos: he might have shown less proprietary concern over Singapore.
Richard Holmes
10 High Street, Alton, Hampshire
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