When telling the 12th-century legend of the Green Children of Woolpit to primary pupils in Wiltshire, I explained how the adults of Woolpit were frightened when the green children were discovered, but not the children. “I suppose it’s a bit like Ukip,” commented one pupil. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings.
Roger Day, storyteller
Wedhampton, Wiltshire
• I believe the Isle of Wight shares with Cumbria the extremely dubious distinction of being an English county that has never had a female MP (There’s a new Sherriff in town, 28 October). Or did I sleep through the independence vote?
Justine Andrews
Ryde, Isle of Wight
• Please could we have Michael Meacher (People need hope, not the Tory austerity tale, Letters, 28 October) for the leader of the Scottish Labour party?
Robert Leach
Selkirk, Scottish Borders
• “Fat idiots are still idiots even when they’re skinny,” writes Stuart Heritage (G2, 28 October) about three public figures who have done nothing more reprehensible than lose weight. Does the Guardian believe that if trolling is done in public, it’s free speech?
Stephen Sedley
Oxford
• A traditional English folk song suggests curly kale (Letters, passim) was once a staple of the labouring classes:
Ale, ale, glorious ale; dressed up in pewter it tells its own tale. / Some folks likes radishes, some curly kale, / But give I fried onions and a girt dish o’ taters / And a lump of fatty bacon and a pint of good ale.
Ian Thompson
Hinton Parva, Wiltshire
• The dispersal of the remains of the Berlin Wall was certain fast and furious (Report, 28 October). I remember, only the day after, being offered a choice of pieces of brick and concrete during a lunchtime pint in Bold Street, Liverpool, just round the corner from some demolished flats.
John Boothby
Warrington
