LETTERS Old favourite
Sir: Having read Paddy Cullinan's letter (15 February), and reread it to check I was not missing some hidden meaning, can I redress his (or her?) utter nonsense and in doing so answer Christian Hesketh's origi- nal query as to how 'Swing Low' came to be sung at Twickenham?
It was a favoured rugby song long before Oti played for England in the late Eighties. I can remember my father and his team-mates singing it, along with other such spirituals, in the bar after games in the Sixties. In the Sev- enties it was a firm favourite with every col- lege team I played for or against, perhaps because it was easy to sing, but mainly because it was accompanied by actions, and as drunken adolescents we found it highly amusing to mime the act of masturbation every time the word 'coming' was sung. As an easy anthem to sing along to, it was frequently aired at the Middlesex 7s during that boring lull between the semis and the final when everyone had imbibed to the Point of cheering the regular police dog dis- play team. From this time (early Eighties) it became a firm Twickenham favourite, and its rise in popularity happened to coincide with the time that England started to win most of their games.
Richard Owsley 10 Royal York Crescent, Clifton, Bristol
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