White's favourite son
Sir: Poor 'little Winston'I He cannot even read my first name- well enough on the review of his book to spell it, as The Specta- tor has always done, correctly. The late member of White's whom I quoted was almost as old as Lord Digby himself and was always seated when I sat and talked with him; he- was never my 'crony' and never at the bar. He was, incidentally, a close friend of Randolph's longtime love, Laura nee Charteris, later•Long, later Dud- ley, later Canfield, last of all Marlborough, a splendid and much missed friend of mine. The barmen of White's, in the near half- century of my membership of that club, for which I was put up by its chairman Duff Cooper and inadvertently supported no less than three times by Lord Ismay, would all confirm that I was their rarest and most parsimonious, if perhaps most popular client. I seldom go there save to collect mail from the equally delightful hall porters, my friends, and often smile at my recollection of the present Duke of Devonshire (KG and a good choice for it too) urging me from the steps: 'For God's sake don't go in, Ali. It's full of awful people bussed down for lunch from the City.' It is true that most
of them break the club rule never to talk business on the premises.
The tax I have paid in Switzerland during my long residence in fact considerably exceeds what I would have to fork out in Britain. I was well aware of the late Lord Digby's distinguished military, horticultural and dendrological achievements. His old chum in White's, so outspokenly fond of him, was merely commenting on the limited intelligence he had in common with so many past military figures.
Alastair Forbes
Les Essarts, Saint-Briac-sur-Mer, 35800 France
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