Aces high and a true view of ‘the few’

A group of Polish pilots on the wing of a Wellington bomber watch aircraft take off from a British RAF base in 1940. Photograph: AJ O’Brien/Getty

So 200 years ago the first Duke of Wellington led the British army that defeated Napoleon at Waterloo (Obituary, 2 January). Next you’ll be telling me that English public schoolboys won the Battle of Britain 75 years ago.
Bill Gabbett
London

• Barney Ronay has got it wrong (Letters, 1 January). God save the Queen is not a plea to God to save the Queen: it just expresses the hope that He will. The verb is subjunctive, not imperative.
Michael Bulley
Chalon-sur-Saône, France

• The snow melted here on the first day of the year and celandines are bravely in flower beside the river Greet.
Catriona Todd
Southwell, Nottinghamshire