Special case?
From Mrs Doreen Parkes
Sir: Reading (Spectator, October 12) Michael Stourton's article 'In a straight line' gave rise to hope that the country's problems were about to be solved.
Mr Stout ton writes of a man who is "an example of such single-minded occupational dedication" that "ought long ago to have arrested the attention of the watching world" and of "one of the most talented organisation men of his generation."
Here, I thought, is the alternative to the Social Contract; could this be one of the elite of whom Sir Keith Joseph approves as the sire of future generations? Could this paragon be exercising the talents Mr Wilson has called for, or answering Mr Scanlon's plea for better management?
No three-day week for him the writer declares "he is a man engaged all day from 10.45 a.m. until dusk" six days a week: engaged, not in a plush City office, but in the rural pleasantness of the Gloucestershire countryside, pursuing, not politics, not commerce, not the law or medicine, but that enemy of all mankind, the fox.
The secret is out. Captain Ronnie Wallace Master of the Heythrop Hunt, is dedicated like all his kind to the furtherance of that noblest profession of all, "bloodsports", a full-time occupation which must make it very difficult for him to contribute to less worthy aspects of life like earning his keep. Perhaps he is not so much unemployed as misemployed, like many another hunting man, and, in due course may qualify, before or after the nurses and miners, as one of Mr Michael Foot's special cases?
Doreen Parkes Roughlands, Tower Road North, Heswall, Cheshire
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