Letter: Jill: a columnist without spite

JUST TO set the record straight for posterity, Linda Christmas talks bitterly about the 'party' which, effectively, led to her resignation as editor of the Guardian women's page ('Jill Tweedie: a woman of sparkling wit', 7 November). It was not a party, nor a group of Jill's 'women friends' who met, but a group of people concerned with the direction the page was taking. I was there and I barely knew her; Jill was there because she was brave enough to act as a catalyst for others.

Jill Tweedie wasn't just amusing, sparkling and (by all accounts) a good friend. She was the best columnist of the time and did it entirely without venom. She left no bleeding corpses of people whose reputations she had trashed. She kept her finger lightly on the pulse of a generation of women, describing how we felt with wit, intelligence and, above all, a compassion that I, for one, have missed since.

Angela Phillips

London N16