Sir, – I have just read the article by Arminta Wallace inside the back cover of the Magazine accompanying the photograph of George Patrick Leitch (September 27th). She quotes Jack McManus as saying that George called his wife "Bates", which may have been her maiden name. That is not so. He called her "Bets", and I don't know where that came from. Her maiden name was Sicily R Allen. At one time she acted with the Father Matthew Players, who were happy to welcome protestant actors. Her father was Maj George L Allen, who for some 30 years was registrar of the School of Physic in Trinity College Dublin.
In the 1930s, George Leitch used the small son of one of his wife’s sisters as a subject for amusing photographs at certain times of year. They illustrated putting back the clock in the autumn, bringing home the Christmas presents, and cleaning the chimney for Santa. That small boy still has prints of the original photographs.
How do I know all this? The small boy’s name was Dudley Levistone Cooney. – Yours, etc,
DUDLEY
LEVISTONE COONEY ,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.