Sir - Regarding George O'Brien's review of Dermot Healy's The Bend for Home: A Memoir (September 28th), my attention was caught by the reference to Percy French's "Just turn to the left at the bridge of Finea".
In Healy's book, "we're told that this left turn can't, in fact, be made except, of course, mentally to make straight the line of a song.
Now don't wish to lessen the impact of O'Brien's memoir, but one thing I learnt from a study of French's work, be it song, painting, poetry or prose, is that he never "invented" - he merely reported in his own inimitable way what was already there. "If it wasn't there, why should he put it in?" his daughter Ettie once explained to me. (Many people tried unsuccessfully to get him to embellish a watercolour he was working on.)
The last time I was in the area of the bridge, I checked up on it, and a local francophile showed me that immediately to the north of the bridge is an old road, now out of use, in the direction of Cootehill via Ballyjamesduff. Anyone coming from Strokestown, Longford, or Granard would indeed "just turn to the left at the bridge of Finea." - Yours, etc.,
(author of A Picture of Percy French),
Eden Street,
Cambridge CBI IEL.