23 NOVEMBER 1996, Page 36

Not promiscuous

Sir: Professional integrity demands correc- tion of the bizarre impression given by the reference to me as 'Doctor Promiscuity' (`The conferences: a postscript', 19 Octo- ber).

For some reason, my mischievous nephew, Simon Sebag Montefiore, who writes for your magazine, insists on intro- ducing his elderly uncle to celebrities and ingenue journalists like Miss Hatch ('Won- derbra' in search of 'wunderbar'?) as the author of Promiscuity. I did indeed write medical books for the general public in the Sixties. These included The Life Pill, Design for Loving and Promiscuity, which examined the effect of the pill on contemporary sexu- al mores. Naturally, given my nephew's raf- fish life with warlords' molls in London, Moscow and Tbilisi, Promiscuity has been his favourite of my books.

Incidentally, I was mayor of Bournemouth during Jubilee year, a Tory councillor for 28 years, chairman of Two Counties Radio, and have been a practising GP for 45 years. I once conducted the Bournemouth Sym- phony Orchestra in William Tell. Perhaps the heroic march at the end of the Overture is the spur for Miss Hatch's frenetic jour- neys around the conference venues.

Gabriel Jaffe

Alun Chine Road, Bournemouth, Dorset