Andrew Marr
The Editor,
The Independent
March 1997

Dear Andrew Marr,

This is an odd letter to write, because although I write for the paper most days we have never actually met, and the reason I am writing is nothing to do with my writing, but at the behest of a reader. A reader who say she has won an Independent competition and never received the prize – but I enclose a copy of the letter so that you can pass it on to the right quarters. She says she has written to you already and got no answer. I told her that editors have many better things to do than answer letters. She challenged me to name one. I couldn’t think of one. So it’s over to you.

Well, I hope we meet one day. I did receive an invitation to an editorial lunch at Canary Wharf one day, but when I calculated that I would spend about six or seven hours just getting there and back, I decided no lunch was worth a lost day. In fact, I wouldn’t even have time to write my Independent piece. I would then get fired for having gone to lunch with the editor.

Incidentally, I didn’t meet the previous editor either. Mark you, he never asked me to lunch.

As I sat down to write to you, I suddenly had a strange memory of a boy I used to know called Marr. When I was at school in Scotland (at Glenalmond in the 1950s) he was one of the fattest boys in the school, until he came back one term very thin. He had had one of those operations which bypass your stomach or something, and most of his food never got digested. Anyway, he went overnight from being very chubby to being a beanpole, and nobody recognised him for a whole term, which meant he got away with murder. The other thing I remember about him was that he could play Grieg’s piano sonata very well. That’s all he could play. He never played anything else. He just practised this one work, which is quite difficult, and quite unpopular, though I have come to the conclusion that it is rather good. As far as I can remember, losing three stone had no effect on his piano playing. Whenever I hear that work, I think of him.

If he was a relation of yours, I am sure you will find this fascinating. If he wasn’t, I am sure you will wonder what I am wittering on about. I wonder the same thing myself.

yours sincerely
Miles Kington