16 APRIL 1994, Page 30

Without distinction

Sir: Why does Auberon Waugh (Another voice, 2 April) suppose that bad manners are the monopoly of what he patronisingly describes as 'the lower classes'?

He should ponder the conduct of the Marquess of Blandford, banned from using taxis because he cannot be trusted to pay, or the Marquess of Bristol, who has squan- dered his inheritance on drugs, or indeed of his own father, whose nauseating descrip- tions of public drunkenness and vomiting have recently been read on Radio 4. Not to mention all those upper-class thugs (Basil Seal, etc.) who abound in Evelyn's novels; fictional, but obviously based on observa- tion of the class to which he aspired.

Richard Last

Tiverton, The Ridge,Woking, Surrey