Not so boring
Sir: The snide are seldom accurate in their facts. This law of literature is exactly illustrated by Richard Ingrams's references to Robertson Davies and the BBC programme Writers and Places (13 August).
Making this programme did not 'provide BBC personnel with a nice trip to Canada'. The programme was made by one of my sons, a Canadian, in Canada, and to the best of my knowledge no one in the BBC had anything to do with the programme except to negotiate the contract for its production and issue the cheque covering its cost.
Mr Ingrains has never heard of The Deptford Trilogy. Penguin Books have. They have thought it worth their while to publish a paperback edition so that the English public, including "the highly literate readers of the Spectator' may have the pleasure of reading it. And the trilogy is not set in boring rural Ontario but mainly in interesting Europe. It is a measure of Robertson Davies's skill that he is not boring about anything, but lively and imaginative about everything.
Although Mr Ingrams seems to bore easily, especially in the matter of getting his facts straight, I suggest that he read Robertson Davies's The Rebel Angels on the refined idiocy of modern universities. Robertson Davies seems to me better on this topic than Bradbury and Amis, but this may be the prejudice of a boring Canadian. H.S. Ferns
1, Kesteven Close, Sir Harry's Road, Birmingham
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