22 SEPTEMBER 1973, Page 5

Sir: How sad that Dr J. Linklater should decide to

give his male chauvinistic views an airing in an article entitled 'The Decline and Fall of the Breast' (September 8).

Whilst no-one could disagree that a breast-fed baby is better than a bottle-fed one (can you tell them apart as adults?), I do query some of the other assertions in his article. Particularly the impressive list of attributes he bestows willy-nilly on the males of our species and the placid virtues he ascribes to the females! If all these are sex-linked as he believes, why is so much time spent at home, school, etc., teaching boys and girls to behave as prescribed? Returning to the Decline and Fall though, I wonder if the following conversation, recently overheard, casts any further light on this: Grandmother to pregnant granddaughter "When I was young we did not have enough money to buy food for the babies and so had to feed them ourselves. But don't you do it. It hurts."

Grand-daughter didn't either!

B. Hughes "Appleby," 49 Clover Rise, Whitstable, Kent.