26 AUGUST 2000, Page 23

Wrong station

From Mr Tom Carter Sir: The incident of Lord Palmerston's cigar (And another thing, 19 August) cannot have occurred at Burnham on Sea railway sta- tion, as Paul Johnson suspects. It was not on the Great Western Railway. It was on the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway, which was owned by the Midland and London and South Western Railways — the deadly rivals of the Great Western. Later, it was owned by the LMS and the Southern.

The nearest GWR station to Burnham on Sea is at Highbridge.