Letter: I name this child . . .

Sir: Your Diarist's item (22 September) about babies in Cambodia being named Untac after the UN Transitional Authority in that unhappy country brings to mind a discovery I made in Borneo in 1966 when I was reporting from there on the armed confrontation between Commonwealth forces in Sarawak, Sabah and Brunei and Indonesian forces in Kalimantan.

So common was it for Dyak expectant mothers to be brought ante-natal care in their jungle villages by Army, RAF and RN helicopters, and sometimes for them to be airlifted out for hospital treatment at Sibu and other towns, that their babies were commonly given such names as Chopper, Wessex and Scout.

Graphic and bodily reminders of such events in the form of tattoos proudly worn in the jungle kampongs of Sarawak were - and presumably still are - ten a

penny.

Yours faithfully,

BOB RODWELL

Belfast

22 September