On March 28 The Times reported that an irate golfer at Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire was thinking of resorting to civil disobedience like the suffragettes. Alistair Lexden’s light-hearted letter in response was published in the paper on March 30.
Sir, Roger East says that he will be “the Emmeline Pankhurst of golf” after being deprived of his right to play at Brocket Hall (“Ousted golfers take a swing at club”, Mar. 28). The suffragette leader, who hated the sport, would have mocked him for even thinking of chaining himself to the gates. He should have invoked Lord Palmerston, a former owner of the Hall. No one insisted more vehemently that Englishmen must enjoy the rights they had acquired. He kept himself fit by vaulting over the Brocket railings until the age of 80. Would not Mr East be more likely to win over the Hall’s new Chinese owners if he impressed them by emulating Palmerston?
LORD LEXDEN
House of Lords