From Mr Timothy Koch

Sir,

The Times newspaper (often distinguished as The London Times by foreigners) was long-known as “The Thunderer” because of the sway its editorials had on those in power. Of course, particularly in the age of the Internet, its influence has greatly diminished along with that of the rest of the printed press. Despite this decline, The Times still has the most famous letters page of any British newspaper, even if this distinction derives more from the past than the present. Historically at least, the letters page of The Times was a British institution and it gives a unique insight into the nation’s social and cultural history, albeit mostly through the lens of the more privileged classes.

In 2017, James Owen edited The Times Great Letters: A century of notable correspondence. The publishers noted that:

As a forum for debate, playground for opinion-formers, advertising space for decision-makers and noticeboard for eccentrics, nothing rivals (the Times letters page) for entertainment value. By turns well-informed, well-intentioned, curious, quirky and bizarre… it has taken the temperature of the British way of life and provided a window on the national character.

While primarily a forum for The Great And The Good to declare and debate, the Times letters page also became a home of eccentric British ideas and obsessions, most famously perhaps the annual reports of hearing the first cuckoo of spring. As James Owen’s publishers observed, it is the place to go “if you want to know why kippers are dyed, who first turned up their trousers (or) how to make perfect porridge”.

This strange mix of the serious and the silly (and all points in-between) meant that letters from Charles Dickens sickened by a public hanging, Florence Nightingale on her vision of healthcare and Benito Mussolini on “the great historical importance of the Fascist experiment” could exist in the same forum as correspondence from Prime Minister Chamberlain on birds in St James’ Park, Sir Julian Huxley on the plural of rhinoceros and P.G. Wodehouse on Bertie Wooster’s receding chin.

Of course, the serious letters take precedence and they begin, naturally, on the top-left-hand-corner of the correspondence page. However, many readers start by reading the letters on the bottom-right-hand-side, the place where the “curious, quirky and bizarre” are put.

In the bottom right, thoughts on marmalade, decorations that tennis is effeminate, warnings on the leech shortage, suggestions for “men only” commuter trains or evidence on the benefits of sleeping outdoors could all generate days or weeks of heated debate until the editor finally declares that, “Correspondence on this subject is now closed”. 

In 1972, the bottom-right-hand-corner was for a few days concerned with oarswomen’s dress in the 1920s, a correspondence sparked, as it often was, by something in the features pages. 

The history page on the Newnham College Boat Club website says that permission to wear shorts was granted by the Newnham Principal in 1924 but only after a beshorted boat club captain had sat on a footstool in her office to demonstrate that the garments were not immodest. According to the University of Cambridge Digital Library however, shorts were only permitted on the lower river.

Possibly only the letters page of The Times could have put oarswomen’s underwear of the 1920s into the public domain.

I have the honour to remain, Sir, your obedient servant,

T KOCH

“Fixed Pins”, Dogger’s Field, Henley-on-Thames, Oxon.

17 October 2022