THE attacks on me go on ('Historic fraud', Letters, April 2).

When Robert Beaumont visited my house he asked me who wrote a note in Essays In York History of about four pages long. I replied that in the form in which it appeared I did.

It was rewritten by me because the original was done so badly (and I was the editor). The writer approved of my redrafting of his notes.

The Oxford graduate spoke to me only about that Essays piece so his charge of fraud - that I wrote this article to promote my own work - must be based only on it.

Is that charge then substantiated by reading the note? No it is not and the Minskip author has perpetrated the worst of all historians' crimes; he has misrepresented his sources.

Of course my work was mentioned - unavoidable in a piece on George Hudson. But praising it? No way.

I could have, I suppose, turned it that way, but did not - and the contributor would not have agreed to it going to print like that.

A J Peacock,

The York Settlement Trust,

Holgate Road,

York.

- This correspondence is now closed

Updated: 11:04 Friday, April 26, 2002