Post-mortem prudence
Sir: While reading Prudence Greiy's letter (21 November) admonishing you for pub- lishing Graham Turner's article about Diana, Princess of Wales, I felt a momen- tary pang of guilt, for I enjoyed reading the article immensely. I was, however, puzzled. Was this a general rule that she was Proposing, that we should refrain from reassessing people's lives for fear of upset- ting their families, or did it only apply to rich and photogenic celebrities?
Did she purse her lips and reach for the pen when Lord Mountbatten suffered a post-mortem reassessment, and did she protest that we should leave Stalin's memo- ry alone for fear of upsetting Svetlana or his millions of admirers in the former USSR? Good journalism avoids the causing of unnecessary distress, but in this case it is surely necessary.
Andrew Clarke
Pentlow Mill, Cavendish, Suffolk
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