All I can say is a heartfelt thank you to BBC Radio 3 (Editorial, 3 May). What would I do without it? I am a NHS trust health visitor in south London, making sure new parents get the support and guidance they need. The sadder side of my job is working in partnership with families who take longer to adjust to being parents: experiencing adverse and frightening health conditions, or trying to protect their fragile families from domestic abuse.
During this pandemic, my team and I are working much longer, gruelling hours, visiting families in their homes or offering instant phone support and advice as well as video consultations to support breastfeeding challenges.
Thank you for my little oasis of calm. I will never forget and will always be grateful.
Catherine Cooper
London
• Your editorial praise for Radio 3’s music programming was welcome and timely. Might I put in a word though for its other vital strength in these troubling times? The Arts & Ideas strand, notably Free Thinking, is as soul-searching and intellectually nourishing as the station’s music and drama output, and in recent weeks, programmes such as Sound of Cinema and Words and Music also manage to bring a great depth of comfort and solace to our days under lockdown.
Richard Lee
Leigh-on-Sea, Essex
• Your editorial outlining the indispensability of Radio 3 to get us through this pandemic reminded me of Cicero’s statement to his friend that “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need”. Because he wrote in 46BC, he failed to include Radio 3. Being able to listen to its programmes on the internet while reading a book (and the Guardian, of course) in my garden has indeed been balm to the soul over the last few weeks.
Jim Reynolds
Vancouver, Canada
• It was great to read your editorial. Credit is due certainly to the presenters and producers working from home but also to Alan Davey, controller since January 2015, through whose steering the station has become the joyous thing it is today.
Michael Brown
Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex
