Something must be said
Sir: Much as I appreciated and enjoyed Gavin Stamp's comparative study of Charles Prince of Wales and the late Duke of Windsor (Princes of their own times', 18 January), might I, as a journalist of some years' standing, raise one small point?
I believe it to be very much in question whether Edward VIII ever uttered, either during or following his visit to the unem- ployed areas of South Wales, the much- quoted words, 'Something must be done.' In the journalistic circles of South Wales, which I inhabited for many years, it was always held that Edward VIII not only nev- er produced such a sympathetic and under- standing thought (it was generally held that he was incapable of such perception) but that it was entirely the product of the im- aginative mind of a South Wales Echo sub- editor desperately looking for a headline for what was, it appears, a vague, rather disconsolate, and utterly `un-news-worthy' visit by the presumptive King. That it has been perpetuated — with the best of inten- tions — by, among others, the charming Lady Donaldson, seems a trifle unfair: Ed- ward did not have that kind of warmth.
Stamp, I believe, is less than generous in his comparisons of Charles and Edward. Charles, an intelligent, warm, witty, sym- pathetic and thoroughly 20th-century man, is a giant compared to the playboy to whom a merciful God denied the accolade of anointment as the crowned King of this United Kingdom.
Alan Protheroe
Amberleigh House, Flackwell Heath, Bucks
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