Sir Gerald to the rescue
From Sir Philip Goodhart Sir: Paul Johnson is right (And another thing, 11 November).
I was in one of the last aircraft to land at Heathrow before the great fog of the 1952/53 winter closed London's airports for weeks. As Paul Johnson remembers, 'Per- haps the worst thing about the old fog was its grime . . . it mixed in its cold and evil stew dirt of all kinds.'
These fogs were effectively cleared up by Sir Gerald Nabarro's Clean Air Act of 1955 which slashed the amount of untreated coal and wood which could be burnt in fire- places. Our fogs became cleaner and seemed to blow away more easily.
From the Conservative back benches, Sir Gerald Nabarro pushed through this legis- lation. In many ways he was an egotistical exhibitionist, but he did more to help our environment than any individual politician in the last 50 years.
Sir Philip Goodhart
London W14
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