18 NOVEMBER 1972, Page 34

Touchy workers

Sir: Terry Pitt, like all good Transport House men, thinks it improper to talk about militants in the unions. Never mind. One shouldn't expect the workers and their apologists to be any less sensitive than other institutions and establishments when it's their turn to be reported on. Mr Pitt says, incidentally, that the 'overwhelming bulk' of The New Militants was published in a Sunday paper. Somebody must have borrowed the slide-rule from the Labour Party Research Department. The Observer printed 12,000 words. The book has 40,000.

Paul Ferris 3 Granard Avenue, London SW15