Peregrine
Sir: I am grateful for all the free plugs The Spectator has been giving us for Bill Grundy's new gossip column in Punch, but 'Peregrine' ought at least to make some attempt to get his facts right. I am on an Italian, not a Greek island. And I am certainly not freeloading; I am having a holiday at my own expense.
I make no complaint about his juvenile sneer at my origins, but perhaps he'd like to note, for the future, that I was born in Hanover and not Bavaria.
I have often wondered why Peregrine', unlike the splendid Bill Grundy, doesn't have the guts to put his own name to his column. Now I know. If I were the author of such drivel I wouldn't sign it either.
William Davis Editor of Punch Lipari, Italy Sir: He who sympathises with an editor must be made of saintly stuff, and Peregrine's sympathy ('Field Sport,' July 5) is acknowledged gratefully.
However, I am well able to deal with the Keigwins of this world, and with anybody else who tries to come the old acid. You will have noted from succeeding issues of The Field that my readers have leapt to my aid.
Wilson Stephens Editor The Field, 8 Stratton Street, London WI Sir: How perspicacious of Peregrine to realise that an Antipodean would obviously know the meaning of Cootarhundra, which sadly escaped my Night News Desk who infiltrated the item without even bothering to telephone and check with me — but such is Fleet Street in these modern times.
Alas your scribe is less than accurate in describing Peter McKay and myself as joint authors of Private Eye's Grovel column. Pressure of work and frequent, lengthytrips abroad have forced me, since, March, to eschew this privilege and pleasure.
Nigel Dempster • (Diary Editor) Daily Mail, Carmelite House, London, EC4
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