5 FEBRUARY 1977, Page 15

Buck up, WHS Sir: Regarding Auberon Waugh's comments (29 January)

upon the absence of the Spectator and the New Statesman from Smug's in Taunton. Their contempt for the intellect of the ordinary citizen reaches even greater heights here in Cambridge, where, with a student population of nearly 12,000, they condescend to supply no more than ten copies of the Spectator, and surely they cannot put this down to lack of demand. Is it surprising that the population of this country is slowly turning into a race of cultural and political zombies? Surely it is the duty of the largest bookseller in the country to keep the better class of periodical circulating rather than to stack its shelves with mindless drivel aimed at dulling the brains of the already boorish population.

Andrew I. Love grove Emmanuel College, Cambridge