The Press
SIR.—On page 157 of the Spectator of February 5, Mr. Christopher Booker denounces tear-jerking, immortal bathos and drooling. On page 162 of the same issue Quoodle describes Churchill's funeral service as glorious and triumphant. It is pleasant to find that Quoodle and I thoroughly agree. In the Evening News on January 31—with somewhat less time to think out my epithets than Quoodle had— I ventured to say that Churchill passed with glory from our midst. Quoodle says that it was a family service. Yes indeed: five days earlier I said it was a family funeral on an enormous scale. Quoodle remembers singing the 'Battle Hymn of the Republic' with all his heart. 'I think almost every- one in that vast congregation,' I wrote, 'was stirred into singing that, massively moving refrain'—ob- viously including Quoodlc as well as myself, tone- deaf though I am. And how right Quoodle was to proclaim that there was nothing here for tears. I believe this to have been the most relevant of quotations, and I was lucky enough to be able to give four lines of it.
To have shared those experiences was (as I felt, and Quoodle felt) a high privilege. To write., about them was one's job as a journalist; and one did the best one coukl. 1 hope Mr. Booker enjoyed the swipes he took at a good many writers. I thought he was pretty uncharitable. Now that he has read last week's Spectator. I wonder whether he includes Quoodle in his condemnation—or me, for that matter.
JOHN CONNELL
7 William Street House, William Street, SW!
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