Bowie book claims hurtful and wrong

The speculation in Lesley-Ann Jones’s book that David Bowie’s eye condition might have been caused by congenital syphilis passed on by his mother, who might have been a prostitute, is completely outrageous.

I am David’s cousin and together we found the letter in question in 1957. I was 15 and David was almost 11. About a week before Christmas, we were looking for hidden presents because nothing was under the tree and we found a tin box in his mother Peggy’s underwear drawer.

The tin contained some curls of blonde hair tied with ribbon, and recent letters from the father of her first son.

Another letter had been written to Peggy by her mother Margaret – our grandmother – in 1943-44, following Peggy’s announcement that she had given up her second child, Myra Ann, for adoption.

Shocked to discover a hitherto unmentioned cousin – David’s halfsister – I read the letter out loud to David, who cried because he was afraid he’d be sent away too if he was bad.

Nanny accused Peggy of behaving like a common prostitute (she did not say that she was a prostitute) by becoming pregnant with yet another man. ‘You’re not worth the parings from under my fingernails’ was a phrase that stuck in my mind.

In the 1990s, Peggy lived with me in Cornwall until she needed residential care. I had full access to all her papers and medical records – there was no mention of syphilis or any STD. She enjoyed exceptionally good health during her life.

Kristina Amadeus, Romney Marsh, Kent