Tears were in my eyes while reading Hadley Freeman’s account of her own awful experiences (My sons ask if a man has ever hurt me. Not really, I lie, 27 March). Her succinct reporting illuminates many ways that inappropriate male behaviour can affect the lives of women.
Francine Isaacs
Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, Powys
• Adrian Chiles laments that you don’t hear of many Irenes nowadays (Isn’t it irenic? It’s time to bring back beautiful words we have lost, 1 April). Well, I’m one such Irene, named from the hit song Goodnight, Irene. By the way, I’m only 16 years older than him, so not of his granny’s generation.
Irene Wood
Peterborough
• When your correspondent (Letters, 1 April) proposes the term “heritage people” to describe UK minorities, perhaps he should bear in mind that all humans have “heritage”, just as all of us are “ethnic”.
Nick Beale
Exeter
• Given the largely negative response to its report on racism (Race report: ‘the government has completely missed the mark’, 31 March), the CRED (Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities) lacks it.
Neil Macehiter
Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire
• Our winter-flowering cherry tree has just blossomed for a second time in three months (The Guardian view on cherry blossom: lessons from fragile, fleeting beauty, 31 March). A joyful harbinger of a post-pandemic summer? Or an ominous harbinger of further global heating?
John Airs
Liverpool
