I was astonished to see, among the “mysterious” gadgets that the Science Museum is trying to identify (Report, 19 July), the Hobbies A1 Treadle Fretsaw of which my late dad made extensive use in the late 1940s. His party piece, then hanging on our and numerous relatives’ walls, was a wall plaque with a delicately cut out galleon, which he copied from the back of an old halfpenny. Hobbies Weekly was very popular, and he bought his fretsaw from their Manchester shop.
Brian Smith
Goostrey, Cheshire
• Adrian Chiles (The secret of my hard-won mindfulness? A bargain bag of beauty, 15 July) fondly remembers a trip to the pub in his “friend Lee’s Ford Escort XR2”. The XR2 was the slightly souped-up Ford Fiesta. The Escort equivalent was the XR3. Blame it on the beer.
Jon Holden
St Albans, Hertfordshire
• Re your report following up on Boris Johnson’s interview with the Sunday Telegraph (Coronavirus: Boris Johnson insists he can avoid second England-wide lockdown, 19 July), it should be illegal for the prime minister to give an interview behind a paywall.
Russell T Davies
Manchester
• In order for the prime minister’s prediction to come true (Boris Johnson unveils plan to return England ‘to normality’ by Christmas, 17 July), maybe we should now all be washing our hands to the tune of Jingle Bells?
Kate Burgess
Bicker, Lincolnshire
• Thanks, Pete Nuttall (Letters, 19 July). After 48 hours I’d finally rid myself of the Peter Sarstedt earworm triggered by the death of Zizi Jeanmaire, and now you’ve gone and started it off all over again.
Margaret Farnworth
Liverpool
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