Sohoitis
Sir: I am surprised that Jeffrey Bernard thinks that 'the disgusting word Sohoitis' is of recent coinage (Low life, 25 January). Serious students of Soho lore and legend will remember another writer who wrote as entertainingly and lovingly of Soho as Jeffrey Bernard, in Julian Maclaren Ross. In the latter's sadly unfinished Memoirs of the Forties (published by Alan Ross, 1965) Maclaren Ross describes his first meeting with J. Meaty Tambimuttu, Indian prince and poet. 'Beware of Sohoitis', Maclaren Ross was told. 'If you get it you will stay there day and night and get no work done ever. You have been warned. Now we will go to the Black Horse, The Burglar's Rest, then the Marquess of Granby, the Wheat- sheaf, then the Beer House and after at 10.30 back to the Highlander which closes later.'
Of course, Sohoitis did get Maclaren Ross, and eventually he died of it. But not before writing the best chronicles of Soho until the advent of J. Bernard.
Martin McKeand
56 Fitzjohns Avenue, London NW3
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