Letter: St George legend

Sir: Anne McElvoy makes the extremely common error of stating that St Augustine converted the British to a new faith. He didn't. He converted the pagan English in Kent.

The British (subsequently known as "Welsh", an Old High German word meaning "foreign") had been Christian for centuries. There were British bishops at the Council of Arles, AD314, nearly 300 years before Augustine.

It is known that traders from the Mediterranean were visiting Britain even before the Romans (also pagans) arrived, and so it is almost certain that there were Christians in Britain from the very earliest days, as the legend of St Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury would seem to indicate.

BENEDICT BAKER

Brecon, Powys