12 SEPTEMBER 1987, Page 24

Hamilton and Hess ,

Sir: The idea that Rudolf Hess and the Duke of Hamilton didn't know each other was questioned at the time of the Hess landing.

Chips Channon writes in his diary for 13 May 1941: . . . Hess once invited Honor and me to lunch in Berlin when we were there for the Olympic Games; we refused — but I remember that 'Duglo' Clydesdale, as he then was, did go, as did Pat Jersey. The world does not know that the Duke is thus concerned in the story. He came to the Foreign Office yesterday and spent an hour with Anthony.' (Chips: The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon was pub- lished by Weidenfeld & Nicholson in 1967.) Elizabeth Joyce

Stratford Cottage, Charlbury, Oxford