Writing about the film Red Joan (19 April), your reviewer refers to the communist Leo’s support of the war as a historical fudge. In fact many communists, including my father and the leader Harry Pollitt, left the party temporarily after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact until the invasion of the USSR. My father served with the RAF and was part of the NHS from its inception to his retirement.
Andrew Jones
Meols, Wirral
• Robert Hooke’s 1664 drawing of a flea – magnificent though it is – is hardly “the first great work of British art” (Big tick energy, G2, 22 April). What of the illustrations in the Lindisfarne Gospels (c 700) or in 12th- and 13th-century psalters? What of the Wilton Diptych (c 1395) or the Nottingham alabaster sculptures carved in the 14th to 16th centuries?
Philip Hoy
Church Enstone
• Without wishing to lower the tone, I am reminded that the use of coney (Letters, 23 April), despite its appearance in the King James Bible, was actively discouraged in the 19th century: it rhymed with “honey”, and was too close to a slang name for a part of the female anatomy.
Ruth Eversley
Paulton
• Very disappointed to see G2 glamorise being overweight (‘I want us to reclaim the word fat’, 22 April). The NHS is broke because of obesity and there is nothing to celebrate.
Linda Theobald
London
• Re your editorial on female composers at the Proms (23 April), to mark International Women’s Day this year, ABC Classic in Australia played only music by female composers for four days.
Marlene Godfrey
Beverley, East Riding
• Keith Wightman asks if Mrs May is prime minister of England only (Letters, 19 April). No, Keith, just some of the posh bits – and dwindling.
Colin Baker
London
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