A family at war
Sir: If Mr Pryce-Jones wishes to establish a reputation for accuracy, could he, instead of hitting little tennis balls at me, answer the following questions which I politely ask : Why when he planned to write a book based on interview and quotation did he not use a tape recorder ?
Does he maintain that is possible---on occasion taking notes so imperceptibly that his subjects were unaware he was doing so —to totally recall conversations often running into many hundreds of words without unintentional misunderstandings. lapses of memory or error ?
Was it ethical to write `He says' and 'she says' followed by quotations when he was writing from memory not from a tape or checked manuscript as his words suggest ?
Did he inform his publisher his quoted conversations were memories not tapes?
Was he convincing to make schoolmistresses, Lady Phipps, Miss Mclndoe, Lord Harlech, Mrs Reid, Antony Rumbold, Princess Zu Solms-Braunsfield (née Princess Carrencita Wrede), Lady Gainer, Mrs Welch Foreston, Baroness Von St Paul, Lady Dunsany, Timothy Bailey, Frau Winifred Wagner and numerous extras all to talk in the same way ?
Lamb ton Lambton Park, Co. Durham
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