The death of Michele Hanson has deprived us of a unique voice (Letters, 6 March). No one I know wrote with such ferocious gentleness. Strong feelings were always at the heart of her writing but she never banged on. She knew where to start and where to stop, and she used her natural easy humour to take us on little outings from which we returned smiling and feeling better about the world, while never forgetting for one moment that it was going to hell in a handcart.
Michael Palin
London
• Reading the tributes to Roger Bannister (Obituary, 5 March), I’m reminded by the absence of any mention of the man who came third in the first four-minute mile: Tom Hulatt of Tibshelf, miner and council rat catcher, who was never invited by the AAA to run again. The extract from the archives, 5 March, suggests he was ignored by the Manchester Guardian at the time as well.
John Bailey
St Albans, Hertfordshire
• Regarding the claim “sugary Coke is the best hangover cure I know” (It’s the mixer thing, G2, 8 March), I think I speak for all your Scottish readers when I say, “Pish!” Nothing beats Irn-Bru, although how it will perform after the reduction in its sugar content (Report, 5 January) remains to be seen.
Steven Edgar
Bristol
• Re Steve Moore’s defeatist rainbow mnemonic: I bet he comes from Lancashire (Letters, 6 March). In my 1950s Yorkshire grammar school it was Richard Of York Goes By In Victory.
Bev Littlewood
Richmond, Surrey
• I recently returned from Ireland where My Very Elegant Mother Just Served Up New Potatoes. She is 88 years old and, like the mnemonic, out of this world.
Tony Moon
Hove, East Sussex
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