Early Hoggwash
From Mr Bob Smyth Sir: Your competition winner's fantasy about Lord Falconer and the catastrophic rave in the Oxford brewery (14 October) actually happened — but in the other camp. In the early 1960s Ouca (OU Con- servative Association) held its summer fundraising bash at the Victoria Arms on the banks of the Cherwell.
The organiser arranged a riverside mar- quee. When the band arrived they asked where they should plug in. No power cable having been laid on, the event was cancelled.
An emergency meeting of the Ouca com- mittee (on which I was, before they changed the rules, a Labour-elected mem- ber) was convened to decide, inter alia, what to do with several hundred rapidly staling rolls and frankfurters.
In a preview of a later beefburger episode, Douglas Hogg proposed donating the lot to the current North African famine area — gaining favourable publicity. 'But, Douglas, they're all Muslims there,' object- ed a more politically conscious colleague of the future junior foreign minister.
Bob Smyth
(Editor Isis, 1964) London SE15
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