10 NOVEMBER 1990, Page 29

Should we be told?

Sir: Poor old Alan Watkins (Books, 3 November). Until I read his review of my book Listening for a Midnight Tram, I had no idea of what a slave-driver I had been or of how I had made him work such cruelly long hours on the Sunday Express. Could this perhaps explain why, after his two-hour lunch break, he was so often found, mouth open, fast asleep on the office sofa snoring his little head off? John Junor

Wellpools Farm Charlwood

Surrey '