The right of reply
Sir: Apart from 'near to libelling Kingsley Amis' I don't mind actu- ally libelling him any time he chooses to make an issue out of itt But SPECTATOR readers should be fascinated to know it was your own press columnist that late, great journalist. Donald McLachlan, for whom Kingsley Amis was set to sharpen pencils who first suggested we interview Amis in the Sunday Telegraph—because Donald Mc- Lachlan was the man who outlined the James Bond character and books to his wartime colleague Ian Fleming and as McLachlan put it : 'I don't think Amis will add any lustre to Bond's image in these books he is proposing to imitate.'
Quite. And I am indebted to my erstwhile fellow student at Swansea University, Mr Marcus Morris, for reminding me that at Swansea versity we all knew Amis as Bops Amis—Bona being the name for Auntie in Welsh.
And Amis certainly demonstrates that same bitchery in everything he sets his fourth-rate pen to.
Never mind Bona, if we nasty journalists say anything annoying about you—hit 'em with your hand- bag! John Summers Churchview, Lulsgate, Somerset
This correspondence is now closed. —Editor, SPECTATOR.
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