Gaitskell's girl

In my piece about Arnold Goodman (THES, November 20), a number of sentences were conflated in an unfortunate way to imply that Hugh Gaitskell's daughter told me unprovable and sensitive things about her father. This is absolutely not the case. After I had met her I became, according to my publisher, much more cautious about what I would include in my biography of Gaitskell. There were other stories about Gaitskell that were difficult to prove and that after meeting his daughter I became much more reluctant to include them because they might be hurtful. I actually think I was always rather cautious: but the point is that Gaitskell's daughter never told me anything that was not based on fact.

Brian Brivati Reader in history Kingston University