Sir, I do wonder, after reading The battle of the biographers (Gray Matter, September 8), why anyone would want to read Betjeman, let alone write about him or fight over the kitsch bric-a-brac in the dead man's closets.

Perhaps the bucolic brand of English conservatism he created has a particular appeal for the kind of mature, sportsjacketed gentleman who is more or less permanently out to lunch in Oxford, in which case Christopher Gray might do the mental health of his, apparently fast dwindling, admirers a favour by bringing on the literary Jamie Olivers.

S. Heeks, Oxford