29 AUGUST 1952, Page 16

Snt, — I feel that Professor Brogan's article in your issue of

August 22nd calls for some comments from one who has recently spent a holiday " at the coast." I can gladden him with the information that there are three Duchesses on the Clyde. The one he overlooked is the

Duchess of Fife,' a railway steamer sailing mainly from Wemyss Bay to Millport by way of Largs.

The locals on Great Cumbrae told me that the road round the island is twelve miles long—it certainly seemed as much when I cycled it. • I should say that this is rather more than a six or seven minute car journey even in the jet age.

Finally I can assure him that I have heard the Lesser Cumbrae called " wee "—and by practically everybody in or around Millport who wished to refer to it. His question would have rung truer to me had it been posed the other way round.—Yours faithfully, 23 Glebe Court, Mitcham, Surrey.

F. G. RICKARD.