Sir, - They are trivial points, but time too easily distorts the facts.
Provost Ernie Southcott may or may not have "written a poem parodying bishops
who led Mediterranean cruises to the Holy Land at Easter" (
Letters, 3 February), the first line beginning "In evening dress to Calvary"
, but, if he did, he stole the phrase from one of his fellow-members of the
then Southwark chapter, Stanley Evans.
Nor did it refer to a cruise at Easter, but to a post-Easter ecumenical
pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1963. It was organised by Inter-Church Travel,
and the programme contained the unwise advice "Evening dress optional" for the
final dinner. This led the radically left-wing Stanley Evans (who went on the
voyage, as did I) to publish a witty, critical, but not unkind, journal of it
entitled "In Evening Dress to Calvary". No one, incidentally, took up the
option.
MICHAEL MAYNE
37 St Marks Road, Salisbury SP1 3AY