22 MAY 1964, Page 16

SIR, As a reporter of the provincial press of many

years' service but of no distinction, I have, in my later years, sometimes been disturbed by the duties which reporters are called on to perform to meet the demands of public curiosity. The diligence of the national press in pursuing some of these stories has been specially disturbing because the interest to be met is so often quite impersonal and thereby rela- tively unimportant, Had this diligence, I often won- dered, nowadays gone too far? I am reassured by Miss Olga Franklin (Spectator, May 8)—'1f there had been any indication that our presence was at any time unwelcome, we would, of course, have left immediately.' Of course.

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