On finding out that our Guide captain’s husband was a test pilot, I learned to fly a plane sitting on her floor, taught by her husband – and I passed! I never lost my love of aircraft. I wonder if they still have an aircraft badge (Letters, 30 July)?
Sheena Thompson
Chesterton, Oxfordshire
• In the 1960s when I called my girlfriend from a callbox (Letters, 30 July) we could chat for hours without extra charges as long as we kept the subject “interesting”, but when it got down to “how’s your mother?” the operator would come on to ask for further money.
Ken Ducker
Yorkley, Gloucestershire
• I fondly remember driving one of my 2CVs (Letters, 26 July) through Hull with the roof open, wearing a floppy white hat. Someone flagged me down, and opened his window. “You look,” he said, in the friendliest possible tones, “a right c*** driving that car in that hat.” Had he only known, I was also wearing sandals and almost certainly had a copy of the Guardian in the car. I did, and do, have a beard.
Dennis Rogers
Hull
• With reference to hanging out the washing (Letters, 30 July). One of the greatest pleasures of the recent heatwave has been hanging out my washing on the line. It is all dried in a trice and smells lovely and fresh compared with washing from the dryer.
Elizabeth Burroughs
Guildford, Surrey
• Obviously in these difficult times we urgently need Nigel Slater recipes for Spam (Ian Jack, 28 July). It would be helpful if Yotam Ottolenghi could provide a must-have list of ingredients which can be bulk-bought and have a shelf life of a decade or so.
John Richardson
South Cave, East Yorkshire
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
• Do you have a photograph you’d like to share with other Guardian readers? Click here to upload it and we’ll publish the best submissions in the letters spread in our print edition
