In about 1984/85 I was a lecturer at an FE college and was phoning a colleague at another college. After several minutes of conversation we appeared to be getting a crossed line (still a fairly common occurrence then). We tried to get their attention and get them off the line but they continued talking. Eventually we listened to them and realised it was a recording of the conversation we had been having – like a very, very delayed echo. I found it a disturbing experience and perhaps now I’ve found an explanation (How Thatcher blacklisted ‘subversive’ civil servants, 24 July). At the time I was also a Lib Dem district councillor.
Christine Napier
Peebles
• I’ve owned two 2CVs and a Morris Minor and read the Guardian for 48 years. Do I qualify (The car for a true Guardian reader, Letters, 24 July)?
Michael Josling
Claxton, Norfolk
• As a young social worker in the mid-1980s, I was so proud of my first car. Yes, a bright yellow 2CV. But I’ll never forget the day a gust of wind caught and unclipped the rolled-up canvas roof, dropping it squarely down over me and my two small boys as I was negotiating a roundabout. My view was totally obscured until I could somehow stop, crawl out… and find the lost children! We all survived – just!
Philly Hare
Malton, North Yorkshire
• A timely reminder that Christmas is on the horizon (Eyewitness, 24 July), but is there a collective noun for Santas (if it’s not a “boatload”)?
Martin Smith
Guildford, Surrey
• I note that you placed the article in which Dominic Raab describes Olly Foster taking over his Brexit role as a “shifting of the Whitehall deckchairs” next to one about the Titanic (25 July).
Sue Ryrie
Liverpool
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