Re the changing demography of Bath (Letters, 25 July): long ago, a fellow student told me that his father, a senior civil servant in the Admiralty, had been evacuated to Bath at the beginning of the second world war. New to the town, he approached the only person in sight, a rather grand lady. “Please can you advise me…” he started. She swayed back slightly drew a breath and said firmly: “Ask one of your own kind.”
David Critchlow
Poole, Dorset
• The Margaret Thatcher quote “If a woman takes on a battle, she has to win” (The PM is her own woman…, 25 July) makes me think of when I became a teacher at a school for emotionally disturbed, and sometimes violent, teenagers in 1970. The head told me that if a boy threw a chair he would aim to miss; not so the girls.
Jennifer Henley
London
• The news that senior officials of the Democratic National Committee conspired to favour a centrist presidential candidate and undermine a leftwing one (Report, 25 July) is truly shocking. We must be grateful that such machinations could never happen in the leadership elections of any British political party.
Paul Hewitson
Berlin, Germany
• Criticism of Jeremy Corbyn’s beard is one thing but the suggestion that socks should be worn with the beard and sandals (Brief letters, 25 July) is an unforgivable hirsute fashion faux pas.
Keith Flett
London
• So Rank Group is entertaining a joint bid for the bookmaker William Hill (Report, 25 July). That inveterate Methodist J Arthur must be spinning in his stern old grave.
Paul Flowers
Salford
• Surely there is no need to test Russian balloonist Fedor Konyukhov for drugs after he had been blown around the world (Letters, 25 July). We all know he must have been high enough the whole time.
David Reed
London
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