No snob he
Sir: While, for obvious reasons, I would be the very last person to complain of anyone wanting to brighten up a contribution to your pages by dropping into the text a name or two, even when one of them is my own, Auberon Waugh (Another voice, 8 August) should really pay a little more respect to what in the last century the good Dr Routh properly called 'the very good practice always to verify your references'.
Contrary to what he wrote, at no time in my long life have I ever referred to anyone, either in speech or in writing, as 'low-born'. That is more likely to be the sort of classifi- cation often on Bron's own sneering lips or on the tip of his sneering tongue or pen.
What I did write of Lady Dudley (who by the way instructed her solicitors to drop me from her action against the Literary Review as soon as she was informed that I would be acting in my defence in person) was in no sense uncomplimentary. It was merely that, in comparison with the ladies-in-waiting' in the excellent eponymous book by a Duke's daughter, Anne Somerset, sent to me for review, she was indeed more 'humbly born'. Alastair Forbes
1837 Chateau-d'Oex, Switzerland
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