26 SEPTEMBER 1947, Page 4

Well, what about our manners? I said a few weeks

ago that I thought them bad and getting worse. I still think that, but when a contradiction comes from as far afield as Istanbul, of course there must be a place for it. Two teaders came home from Turkey for the first time for seven years. Having heard of bad manners in England they looked for them and found none. A secretary, a foreigner, came too. She found everyone so helpful and nice and polite, so different from people in Paris. This deserves record, but I can't help feeling that the visitors struck lucky. Not all of us do ; at any rate not always.

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