31 OCTOBER 1998, Page 33

Mellow men

Sir: How right Matthew Pan-is is (Another voice, 24 October). It always seems to me unjustifiably high-principled when politicians are criticised for making U-turns. I remem- ber in the distant Thirties standing for elec- tion as president of the JCR at Worcester College, Oxford against a long-haired, unshaven, left-wing, anarchic extremist called Woodrow Wyatt. (I say this in no way to blacken the father of my favourite Petronella.) I was an ultra-conformist, Mary Whitehousian Tory, son of a father known to his brothers as Colonel Blimp.

We both mellowed in advancing years, Woodrow Wyatt turning almost into a Thatcherite devotee while I no longer advocate bringing back the stocks.

Eric Dehn

5 Trelawney Road, Bristol