Sir : There is one point in Josephine Boyle's spirited
letter (16 February) which 1 really must contest. Mrs Boyle writes: 'Mr Raven . . . comes from the right class, went through all the right educational processes and has always played the game by the rules.' On the contrary : I come from a most dubious section of the middle class, was expelled from school, had to vacate a university studentship because of sheer idleness, and resigned my commis- sion in the Army in circumstances which bordered upon scandal. In short I know a great deal more about the processes of failure than Mrs Boyle does (if, that is, we are to believe her complacent account of her own career); and what is more, I am fully prepared to admit that it was all my fault.
For the object of my article was not to get at people who fail (as Mrs Boyle, in her fit of pro- gressive tantrums, seems to assume) but to accuse those people who, having had every reasonable opportunity, persist in blaming their failures on any- body or anything except themselves.
London WC I Simon Raven
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