In her survey of women changing their surname on marriage (Review, 13 December), Sophie Coulombeau says of the situation in America: “It was only in 1972 that a succession of legal cases confirmed that women could use their birth names in whatever way they pleased.” Up to a point. When I became the Guardian’s Washington correspondent in 1979, the US embassy in London refused to issue a visa to my wife (who keeps her own name) until we had produced our marriage certificate – not the easiest thing to do when you have packed up your home and are on the way to Heathrow.
Harold Jackson
Woolpit, Suffolk
• Stimulated by Coulombeau’s essay, I wanted more information on pioneering feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. On looking her up in my Chamber’s Biographical Dictionary I was met by the instruction: “Wollstonecraft, Mary – see Godwin.”
Ian Verber
Broughton in Furness, Cumbria
• Activist pensioners (Letters, 18 December) wanting to inform the world that they are reclaiming not just the P-word for themselves will find that, with a little judicious stitching on the G, the large logo displayed on the front of the sweatshirts of a well-known high street fashion brand can readily be transformed into the out-and-proud statement: “OAP”.
Mike Hine
Kingston on Thames, Surrey
• As a friend of mine heroically secured his concessionary admission to the Acropolis by waving his Blackburn council bus pass, the official summed up the transaction: “So, that’s one pensioner, and two normal.”
Brian Stevenson
Manchester
• With reference to Simon Hattenstone (Opinion, 16 December), although sadly it has never been released as a single, up there alongside the Pogues, is Bob Dylan’s Must Be Santa. Just brilliant.
Celia Ford
Bury
