30 SEPTEMBER 2000, Page 33

From Mr John Dege Sir: In the 1950s I was

running a one-man tailoring business in London's West End. One day, into my humble establishment strode a handsome young man with a mane of fair hair soliciting my custom for an adver- tisement in a long-defunct trade journal called Man about Town.

Feeling sorry for him having to traipse around London touting for orders — prob- ably on commission — I took out an adver- tisement which, in those days, cost about £10.

In his article on Michael Heseltine (`Mane course', 9 September) — for that is who the young man was — Boris Johnson mentions that he is one of the richest men in Britain. So where, I wonder, did he go right and I go wrong?

John Dege

Warlingham, Surrey