Two families
Sir: Mr Waugh should have realised that those who read The Times and Spectator may also read the Observer. No wonder he blustered so about a straightforward profile of one particular British family (8 May), embarrassed of course by the fact that a fulsome, if otherwise not dissimilar inven- tory of his own lifestyle was about to ap- pear in a Sunday newspaper.
I was attempting to portray a family not, as Mr Waugh erroneously inferred from the introduction, as either 'typical' or `average' — but as a reality behind a myth, warts, or in this case, wholesomeness and all. Having totally missed the point, which the two other people who read the article found no difficulty whatsoever in grasping, it is of course not surprising that Mr Waugh's thesis disintegrated amidst the puffing and expostulating of a man who was clearly having difficulty filling the page. Perhaps the prolific Mr Waugh is over- worked. In fact if, as we were told in the Sunday newspaper, he takes an entire day or, God forbid, a day and a half, to write an article such as 'Norman and Judy' then he must be. Learning to type might help. It saves time and is not a difficult skill to master as many of the handicapped of whom he writes so carelessly would testify. The typewritten script also has the uncom- fortable attribute of throwing sloppy think- ing into sharp relief.
It is a little sad to see a man of Draculean talents resort to a diet of petty parody but then we scribblers have to earn a crust; and Mr Waugh it would seem needs an entire loaf in order to sustain all those children and school fees and rooms and cleaning women and gardeners and acres and sale- room impulses and need I go on? However, since he was prepared to be the umpteenth `personality' into whose room we are in- vited to creep every Sunday, I am quietly optimistic that he will do the gentlemanly thing and accept my invitation to be inter- viewed as an untypical example of the British upper middle classes for The Times. A little more media exposure can do no harm and because, as Mr Waugh so rightly says, 'pure virtue is never easy to make at- tractive', there is absolutely no danger that he will appear smug.
Judy Froshaug
22 Yerbury Road, London N19
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