Sir – Andrew Motion’s old school, Radley (mentioned in passing, by Christopher Gray in his fine Remembering too many fallen in war, February 23) has been notable in its creative talents, as was demonstrated at an exhibition in the school library in July 2006.

As well as Andrew Motion, who has expressed his debt to his housemaster and English teacher, Peter Way, other Radley poets have included Harold Munro, founder in 1912 of the Poetry Bookshop; and still very much with us, the gifted poet-scholar-translator, Stephen Romer, based in France since 1981, back in Oxford in Trinity Term 2010 as a visiting fellow of All Souls, and Duncan Forbes.

Another Radleian of diverse talent was the poet-translator-playright Jonathan Griffin (1906-1990), whose translations are better known than his acute and subtle and wonderfully musical poetry (Collected Poems in Two Volumes: The University of Maine, 1989). Griffin deserves to be as celebrated, as poet and translator (notably of Fernando Pessoa), as that great interpreter of mid-20th century Spain, Radleian Gerald Brenan.

Another Radleian of creative brilliance was my cousin-by-marriage (to my architect cousin and ceramicist, Eleanor Pryce), the architect, illustrator, and founding figure of the Victorian Society, Tom Greeves (1917-1997), whose drawings of fantastic ruined buildings are represented in the Radley College library by his beautiful limited edition book entitled Ruined Cities of the Imagination (1994). Tom Greeves, like Jonathan Griffin, was also an accomplished pianist.

Perhaps there’s something in the air at Radley which gives voice and shape to poets, artists, and musicians. As for Oxford . . .

Bruce Ross-Smith, Headington