Letter: Marked grave

I was shocked and horrified to read that after an acrimonious end to his marriage, Norman Douglas, the diplomat turned author of the hedonistic novel South Wind, "transferred his attention exclusively to young boys ... [and subsequently had] an affair with a 10-year-old girl" ("Elizabeth the first", Review, 5 October).

Like any decent person I subscribe fully to the prevailing mood of paedohysteria. It is nonsense to suppose that there could be sexually intimate relations between adults and children which do not conform to a template of abuser and victim.

Mr Douglas is dead but it is not too late to name and shame him. If we know where paedophiles are interred (when their crimes are posthumously revealed) a prominent "P" should be fixedto their grave to inform the world that sexual obloquy can never be forgiven or forgotten.

Michael Masson

London SE15