Author response

In his review of my book The Last Bohemians – The Two Roberts, Colquhoun and MacBryde (Comment, 9 March), Professor Duncan Macmillan criticises the fact that I mention a John Houston, a fellow student of theirs at Glasgow School of Art, without pointing out that this was not the John Houston, well-known artist, husband of Elizabeth Blackadder and ex-pupil of Edinburgh School of Art.

I assumed, perhaps inadvertently, the fact that the John Houston I referred to was at Glasgow in the early 1930s (when the other Houston was a mere infant) would have made the distinction obvious.

More seriously, he takes me to task for not pointing out that two Scottish representatives on the War Artists' Advisory Committee ("a Mr Sturrock and a Mr Foggie") were "well-known Scottish artists", stating that this "slackness of detail" raises a question about the book's reliability.

One of the sources I used when researching the Roberts' lives and Scottish art in general was Professor Macmillan's Scottish Art in the 20th Century, a book I assumed to be reasonably definitive.

Strange then that of these two "well-known Scottish artists" Sturrock is referred to only once in the book while Foggie is not mentioned at all.

Macmillan concludes by stating that it was Francis Bacon who called the Roberts "the Last Bohemians" and "so gave Bristow his book title". I have no idea whether Bacon described them as such but my quote is taken from Ken Russell when describing making his TV film about them in 1959, as is clearly stated in the book, opposite the title page.

ROGER BRISTOW

Carnyorth Terrace

Near St Just in Penwith, Cornwall