Howlers and Honks
Sir: If Lady Donaldson (Books, 19 Octo- ber) really thinks Artemis Cooper is 'a Peerless editor' who 'has worked very hard' then her standards must be below par even for the normal post-war Brit course (If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing wrong or at least badly'). Her guesswork dating of too many letters is miles out and I gave up counting the gratuitous footnote howlers and tastelessnesses at the two-dozen mark, with many pages still to go.
Why, for example, print Waugh's letter to Nancy Mitford saying, 'You know I call Honks "Baby"? Embarrassing but true' Without adding a footnote to say that Nancy's sister Diana (ci-devant Guinness, now the Widow Mosley) had been 'Honks' Ion. g before Waugh had even met the other Diana and become her stage-door Johnnie and friend on the Miracle's provincial tour? So that Baby became Honks Cooper to dis- tinguish her from the genuine article, the late Lord Head even going so far at one
time as to call Honks any woman who hap- pened to have been christened Diana.
As to Diana 'always' (Artemis scripsit) calling me a spy, for the reasons given, she did not do so more often than I myself pun- ningly called her a Whore-concours', on account of her inability to refuse even sexu- ally harassing presents from gentlemen, neither of us liking to repeat our jokes and teases too often.
Alastair Forbes
1837 Chateau d'Oex, Switzerland
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