Yours sincerely
Sir: Christian Dior's ploy of bombarding Patrick Cosgrave with promotional post- cards is hardly novel (15 September). That wonderful Edwardian raconteur, Osborne O'Hagan, recounts in his memoirs how he reduced his weight by eight stone from 20 stone by rubbing himself with Amiral soap, a French product whose principal ingre- dient was ox-gall. Amiral was launched in England with great fanfare as a means of reducing surplus fat: a slyly-worded perso- nalised letter from `Madge', one of a yachting party, telling how the guests had benefited from Amiral soap during their cruise, was sent to thousands of women in the West End, in the hope that when the letter was opened, the recipient would think there had been a mistake in the addressing of the envelope, but would read the letter and act on it. This stunt produced a huge, if ephemeral, demand for Amiral, which only proves that reading other peo- ple's correspondence is a perfectly proper British tradition.
R.P. T. Davenport-Hines
51 Elsham Road, Holland Park, W14
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