I was amused and a little amazed to find my recent remarks concerning Michael Ramsey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, to be such a source of outrage to reader Glena Chadwick, who wrote to complain to my editor about them.

They concerned, you might recall, his surprising departure from Oxford, having previously declared he was here for the duration of his retirement.

Chadwick - to return her rudeness in applying to me a style unfamiliar since my schooldays - appeared to think I was hinting at something sinister behind Ramsey’s move.

Such an idea had never occurred to me, though I begin to wonder now. Have I been alerted to the possibility of misconduct by the unnecessary denial of it, rather like Billy Bunter’s schoolmates were? “I didn’t see Bob Cherry’s cream buns hidden behind my gobstoppers in the locker.”

Chadwick shows easy superiority in wondering how I, a mere reporter, could dare to quiz the saintly Ramsey (whose name she misspells four times in her letter) on his movements. I did so only because he had earlier told me something quite other about his future plans.

She expresses surprise that I should have named the make of car in which I travelled to interview Lord R. I mentioned my Morris Minor because this was the model driven by the churchman in the days of his chauffeur-free archbishopric. We were told about it in the letter – aired both in The Times and the Daily Telegraph – which featured a story Chadwick found “affectionate”.

Clearly she didn’t read it with the same attention she pays to my work – a very flattering one, I have to say.

As with many (all?) who complain of my journalism, Chadwick proves to be an avid, right-to-the-end reader of it. What more can a writer ask?