Butterfingers
Sir: Alan Watkins's Diary piece on Sir Her- bert Butterfield (22 June) contains a large number of factual errors. My name is Patrick not Paul, I left New Hall almost two years ago and my biography of Butterfield is neither authorised nor forthcoming indeed it does not even have a publisher.
I have read all the Butterfield archive and I can categorically state that these papers contain no evidence that Butterfield visited prostitutes, nor do they contain any `pornographic material'. Equally absurd is the accusation of malpractice in examining candidates for the Cambridge Historical Tripos. Neither would a study of appoint- ments to the Cambridge history faculty dur- ing his period of prominence support the claim that he blocked the progress of stu- dents of other Cambridge historians. I believe none of these claims to be true. I fear that Mr Watkins hag uncharacteristi- cally derived his information from a tainted source.
Patrick Higgins
51A Du Cane Court, Balkans High Road, London SW17
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