10 MAY 1997, Page 29

A hardy race

Sir: Your piece about the queer goings-on on Hampstead Heath (`There's something in the undergrowth', 19 April) calls to mind a robust Churchill anecdote. A 'Churchill courtier anxious to avoid political damage reported to Winston that a Conservative MP had been arrested in a London park at midnight for indecent exposure. With that wicked twinkle in his eye the PM observed, 'At midnight, you say, in this weather? It makes you proud to be British.'

Timothy Birch

48 Nairana Rest, Noosa Heads, Queensland, Australia