I WAS fascinated to read W King's letter, in which he tries to defend York historian Alf Peacock's practice of using pseudonyms to promote his own books (March 5).
He suggests that Dr Peacock is in good company and cites Saki as a fellow practitioner of this dubious art.
I may have missed a trick here, but I'm sure that Saki never behaved in such a fashion. There is a world of difference between adopting a nom de plume, as Saki did, and hiding behind a pseudonym to praise oneself, as Dr Peacock does.
Indeed Saki, with his wicked sense of humour, might have concocted a savage short story about Dr Peacock's penchant for self-congratulation.
Mr King asks why I haven't taken Dr Peacock's contentions about George Hudson one by one and demolished them. That is exactly what I have done in my book The Railway King. Perhaps Mr King might like to read it, before stumbling into print?
Robert Beaumont,
Minskip,
near Boroughbridge,
York.
Updated: 11:21 Saturday, March 09, 2002
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