Silver service
Sir: As Christopher Fildes's bizarre para- graph headed 'Family silver' (City and Suburban, 1 June) has gone unremarked I feel impelled to reply. The Silver Trust, set up by Rupert Hambro and Lady Henderson in 1988, has already placed many commissions for the Downing Street silver. The Silver Trust has received wide pub- licity since then — not all of it favourable. Most damning were Auberon Waugh's Comments in the Sunday Telegraph of September 1989, headed 'Last refuge of the patriot', in which he claimed that British silversmiths had lost the skills and creative ability to produce inspired and gracious designs. This is certainly not the case, as anyone who has seen the Gold- smiths' Hall Collection will testify. The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths Will, I am sure, want to comment. I myself have been commissioned to make a pair of candelabra for the Trust and am prepared to bet that it will not look 'as if it belongs to the staff canteen at some Scandinavian airport'.
Jocelyn Burton
Jocelyn Burton Goldsmith and Silversmith Ltd, 50c Red Lion Street, London WC1
Previous page
