10 OCTOBER 1992, Page 28

Two fingers

Sir: My son, a lorry driver, tells me that the two-fingered sign that unsettles Dr Greer is not a crude sexual insult, as described in Auberon Waugh's column in last week's Spectator (Another voice, 3 October), but originated with our archers as a gesture of defiance towards the French during the Hundred Years War. Our sturdy chaps would wave two fingers at the enemy to show that there were still plenty of gallant bowmen left who had not had their vital fingers amputated by the despicable foe and were fully equipped to lose further arrows. Not a lot of intellectuals may know this.

A.R. Nicholson

Adstockfields Farm House, Adstock, Buckingham