SIR. Your obituary of Kingston Grammar School's Ken Cripps reminds me of a conversation many years ago with another Ken, who cut hair in a barber shop of that name in Hawks Road.

I asked him how he knew his namesake.

"Oh," he replied, "when Ken was at the grammar school, he would say to a pupil: "Get your hair cut!" - and the lad would come in for a trim".

Having entered the profession, in a more Latitudinarian age, nearly half a century after Ken Cripps: I was intrigued by the thought of a schoolmaster exercising the authority I associated with senior NCOs in the Army.

Iain Innes Burgess
Hampton Wick