An English legacy
From Mr Paul Callan Sir: Mary Wakefield's study of Lynda LeePotter's personal universe ('She must be joking', 31 August) made fascinating reading. I recall all too vividly Lee-Potter's 'creation' as a columnist by the late (and relatively lamented) Sir David English in 1971.
At the time I was newly hired to start the Daily Mail Diary (Dempster was, I think, my number three or four), and the star of the new tabloid Daily Mail was the great (and still greatly lamented) Jean Rook, the 'First Lady of Fleet Street'.
She soon left for the Express, leaving an angry English with a hole to fill. He quickly found an obscure, mouse-quiet feature writer — yes, it was Lynda — whom he moulded into the unintentionally comic writer we have today. Her style and prejudices remain unchanged from those heady days. Dear old English must be resting comfortably in his tomb, warm in the knowledge that many of his old 1970s views and clichés still live on in the prose of Fleet Street's very own pantomime dame.
Paul Callan
London SW10
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