Humphry's advice
Sir: I have just returned from an extended tour in the Middle East to find that the memory of my old friend
Humphry Berkeley appears to be
becoming defective, to judge as last from 'A Spectator's Notebook' of May 18.
The public relations company of which Humphry was a director and which advised the Government of Ghana in 1959-60 was that which bears my name. For from being "in no way connected with the public relations side of the business" (as far as I am aware, incidentally, there was no other side) Humphry was considerably involved; indeed most helpfully so, as, for example, when he led a group of his parliamentary colleagues, with perfect propriety and some elegance, on a visit to that agreeable country. According to our records Humphry was a member of the board from July 1959 to April 1962. The loan to which he refers was in fact a small bridging finance transaction which was
discharged in 1960. Humphry, was
admittedly not with us for long. Greater matters supervened and there was, also, the rather trying anomaly of a director of a public relations consultancy being engaged in litigation with a national newspaper. We agreed it
would be better if Humphry were to
resign from the company. He did so. As I am sure that he will be preparing the notes of his memoirs with the scrupulosity which he generously attributes to us in repaying the modest appropriately modest bank obliged us, I felt that he, as much as you, would wish this episode to be set down more accurately than his recollection apparently allows.
Michael Rice 132-135 Sloane Street, London SW1
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