19 OCTOBER 1962, Page 8

Tradition Maintained

But there were further treats in store. In the morning I was called twenty minutes later than I had asked, so that I missed the train I had meant to catch. As a parting pleasure the manager insisted on charging me not for the two nights I had spent under his roof, but for the four for which the room had originally been booked for someone else. When I pointed out that his hotel was full of vacant rooms, he smiled: 'All, but that's not the point, is it, sir?' In the background the kitchen staff turned up the Light Programme as if to blast the people impertinent enough to be still at breakfast right through the glass doors into the street. Here at least con- servative traditions of a sort are in safe hands. That's the point, I suppose.