26 AUGUST 2000, Page 23

So hard on our heroes

From Mr Andrew Telford Sir: Poor George Mallory! The man who, more than 75 years ago and nearly 30 years before Hillary and Tenzing, may well have conquered Everest clad in little more than his Sunday best was, according to Jan Mor- ris (Books, 19 August), 'not the stuff of last- ing archetypes . . . a little wimpish . . . His image may not thrill us nowadays, except as a corpse on a high mountain' and he was, like the actor Leslie Howard, 'that wettest of leading men'.

Heaven help the rest of us poor mortals should we ever come to be judged by Morris's standards.

Andrew Telford

Haywards Heath, West Sussex