MR. GILBERT HARDING
SIR,—Writing) in the Spectator of December 24 with sonic indignation, and in no very kindly terms, Mr. Haynes complains that your critic considers that there are 'size and splen- dour' in the television appearances of Mr. Gilbert Harding. Now it is true that the pro- gramme which I imagine Mr. Haynes to be most familiar with, 'What's My Line?' does not call out the best from Mr. Harding's capa- cities of mind or heart. It is merely a pole up which a hear is expected to climb. But, by a direct implication, Mr. Haynes goes on to put Mr. Harding in the class of 'pygmies,' by comparison with other personalities among whom he includes'the late Tommy Handley.
I really feel that Mr. Haynes is suffering from a reaction (which is natural enough) from that over-notoriety among the masses of us which Mr. Harding must half-enjoy and half- resent. If Mr. Haynes regards Mr, Harding as some globular thing that bounces only be- cause it is hollow, he is making a grave mistake and will some day regret his injustice, Mr. Harding can he intolerable: but the reasons for which he is tolerated (not to say relished) are not shallow or impermanent. Microphone and television camera are reveal- ing things: beneath the growl and the glare they have revealed to the public—which would otherwise have long ago discarded Mr. Hard- ing—a central character' which really is of some "size and splendour": ziod, I would add, sympathy.
He may be a great booby, offen enough. He is also a man of rich, confused reading. He is a man of opinions which owe very little to fashion. His sonority of speech conies from a mind of 'well-cast metal. He can turn a phrase powerfully, and no man has yet heard him fall back on an easy catchword. In an inarticu- late age he pronounces fluently. And I suspect that what the public sees' in him, or rather apprehends without any precision, is a gener- osity and a courage of the most real kind— the romantic kind. In contrition, as in insult, he is intemperate, and in both he is equally sincere.
So, I am sure, is Mr. Haynes sincere; and it may well be true that Mr. Harding needs an occasional good clump' on the ear.. But do not let us have any of this 'pygmy' nonsense: to give Mr. Harding this clump on the car you must rather reach up. The public does not faithfully follow a pygmy in a pet, nor do the very many friends and colleagues who are constant to Mr. Harding. The quality of the man—it is the quality which, in BBC pro- grammes or on public platforms, shines through the gloomy exasperation with which Mr. Harding regards a world which includes himself—is, in fact, a large and a splendid quality; and your critic judges it more justly
• than Mr. Haynes.—Yours faithfully, Savile Club, 69 Brook Street, W.1
LIONEL HALE
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