Every Englishman - even the CEO of Barclays - has the right to cross-dress Scratch an Old Etonian called Henry and it is a racing certainty that he will harbour secret fantasies about dressing up as Henrietta, with winsome curls and bright red lipstick. Half the PoWs in Colditz leapt at the chance to prance about in floral frocks at camp entertainments. At single-sex boys" schools of the sort I attended in the Seventies, nothing caused more mirth, controversy and embarrassment than the casting of the school play. If you were tall and your voice had broken, you were guaranteed a male part. Otherwise, you were at the mercy of a headmaster with a sense of mischief. I still have an old photograph of myself in a school play in 1971, squiring a younger boy, one J S Varley, who was dressed in a headscarf, shawl and long skirt. Was the boy scarred for life? Did his self-esteem suffer? Not a bit of it. As John Varley, chief executive of Barclays, he became one of the leading bankers of his generation, with a suitably manly pay packet. Probably half the men in the City have similar stories to tell. I missed out on cross-dressing at school, but made up for lost time at Oxford, appearing as a pantomime dame figure in a Greek play. One of my nylons laddered, my mascara ran and I never got the hang of high heels; but my false breasts caused a sensation and the thrill of singing three octaves above my normal register will live with me for life. Why do we do it? A psychologist would probably conclude that Englishmen are so emotionally repressed, from the nursery onwards, that they need to let down their hair occasionally - preferably in flowing blonde ringlets à la Goldilocks. But whatever the genesis of the kink, it is our kink and we are proud of it. Even in no-nonsense Yorkshire, where men are men, butch blokes called Ted and Barry fall over themselves to connect with their feminine side. Go to Headingley cricket ground on the Saturday of a Test match and you will see a bewildering array of men attired as women - from French maids to Monty Python housewives with headscarves. They look frightful, but they mean no harm and, when rain has stopped play, they add to the merriment. When all is said and done, they are only exercising their birthright as Englishmen - a birthright we should defend. As Karl Marx nearly said: "Drag queens of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your stockings and suspenders!