13 SEPTEMBER 1986, Page 27

Before you go

Sir: Raymond Keene describes (Chess, 6 September) the 'curious Azerbaijani cus- tom' of sitting in silence before leaving for a journey. It is not only Azerbaijani. In Doctor Zhivago (Chapter 2, section 19) Lara and her mother have to move to a hotel to avoid the violence of that neigh- bourhood in Moscow in 1905. The mother just before leaving the house says, 'Well, let's sit down and then we must be off.'

J. D. Renwick

4 St Augustine's Park, Ramsgate, Kent