Sir: In a fanciful review of Hugh Thomas's book, which
alleges that the Rudolf Hess who died in Spandau was not the Rudolf Hess who was Hitler's close associate, John Zametica makes a very interesting remark. Lookalikes, or doubles, are more com- monly encountered than most people im- agine, he writes.
When I was a pupil at Lancaster Gram- mar School, I was frequently mistaken for a young man from the Regent Street Polytechnic which had just evacuated to Lancaster at the beginning of the war. As an undergraduate at Oxford I was some- times mistaken for a contemporary at Magdalen. As Professor of History at the University of Birmingham three visitors, all strangers to each other and all visiting at different times, claimed to have met me at the London School of Economics, which was impossible. Yet, I have never met anyone who has a lookalike. In an idle way, I wonder if others have shared my experience. And before conceding facial ordinariness of a high order, I would point out that these mistakes of identity occured over a period of many years.
Douglas Johnson
Department of History, University College, Gower Street, London WC1
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