Like Ros Slowley (Letters, 10 November) I still have my Bayko but I remember Arkitex, a toy even more akin to Arckit. It was made by Triang and consisted of bases, beams and panels from which you could build a model of a 1960s office block – and not much else. Santa didn’t bring me an Arkitex set, but the Bayko was enough to ensure that I “grew up” to be a town planner.
Baz Juniper
Combwich, Somerset
• I was part of the crowd at the re-creation of the Russian revolution in 1967 (Albert Hunt, Obituaries, 9 November). Bradford Exchange Station (closed, I think) was transformed into the Finland Station. An old man asked what was happening. When told, he confessed that as a young seaman, trapped because the ports were closed, he had watched the real Lenin arrive. I heard that later, history was made real when he talked to the students about his experiences during the revolution. Albert Hunt must have loved this fusion of art and life.
Andrew McCulloch
Collingham, Nottinghamshire
• Unlike Patrick Barkham (Notebook, Guardian, 10 November), I increased the area of woodchip on the walls in my home a few years ago, along a corridor that was already half-papered that way. The decorator had some difficulty finding a supplier of the paper. All the usual outlets had ceased to stock it for health and safety reasons. Apparently, the paper was judged to be unsafe because it was a potential source of splinters.
Ken Vines
Plymouth
PS I still have my 2 and 2X Bayko sets.
• Anyone who has ever chaired a meeting knows that the scariest three letters are AOB (Letters, 10 November)
Liz Bavidge
Halifax
• Surely a useful new topic (Letters, 9 November) would be a follow up to Zoe Williams’s words that no longer mean what we understand them to mean, eg moderate for rightwing.
John Airs
Liverpool
