28 MARCH 1981, Page 18

Personal habits

Sir I think it is a pity to portray W.H. Auden with a hat and with a pipe in his mouth as if it were characteristic of him. In the early Thirties he always carried a box of fifty or a hundred Players cigarettes in a side pocket and felt endlessly for them when walking or talking. He would stride hatless through the countryside and the only hat I ever saw him wear was a fur one which he brought back on his head from central Europe, making the trip in winter in his open Morris car.

F.G. Warner

Beangas, Cancon, Lot-et-Garonne, France