Double the pleasure
Sir: Adrian Berry writes (Letters, 4 July) that I am in error in suggesting that the edi- tors of the Oxford publication Parson's Pleasure included lain Sproat. He adds that he (Mr Berry) was the only editor, handing over to Richard Ingrams.
I am well aware of the Parson's Pleasure that Mr Berry edited, and I quote from it in my book Young Betjeman.
But he is evidently unaware that, three years after he founded his magazine, a new Parson's Pleasure was published. I con- tributed to it a parody of an A.J.P. Taylor lecture and a very badly drawn caricature of Paul Foot. As it happens, I have kept a copy. As the cover and page 2 show, the masthead clearly states: 'Edited by Iain Macdonald-Sproat [as he then styled him- self] & Nicholas Zvegintzov.' (Both were at Magdalen with me.) However, I think the amusing 'fraudulent' cover-lines I quoted in my review of the biography of the Revd Marcus Morris appeared on the front of another Sproatl Zvegintzov publication, Oxford Circus.
Bevis Hillier
Garrick Club, London WC2
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