What is it about the water in Bristol? Just as “extraordinary” as the scientists Peter Higgs and Paul Dirac being pupils at Cotham school is that both Sir Bernard Lovell and Colin Pillinger went to Kingswood grammar school. Perhaps it’s not the water, just good schools providing first-class education. Your report (30 January) shows that the present-day Cotham school is doing just that.
Rev John Harris
Leamington Spa, Warwickshire
• One speculation on the Litvinenko death that you do not mention (A very peculiar poisoning, 31 January) is James Lovelock’s credible conjecture that he was poisoned using expensive polonium in order to increase the western public’s fear of all things nuclear, so that the west would continue to buy Russian gas.
Hugh Dower
Leyburn, North Yorkshire
• Roy Plomley had to travel to Yorkshire to record Louis Armstrong for Desert Island Discs in 1968 in an old BBC North studio used for radio drama (Armstrong’s Desert Island Discs found, 31 January). This may explain the absence of an archive copy of the recording. Armstrong was appearing nearby at Batley Variety Club, where I met him with the BBC’s limousine. Among those welcoming him at the studios was a young assistant drama producer, Alan Ayckbourn.
Brian Clark
Husthwaite, North Yorkshire
• My late husband, a Guardian reader from his arrival from India in 1956, used to tell the story of a visit to our newsagent. The assistant called out in the shop: “Ere Fred, you know that darkie fellow what reads the Guardian … ’e ain’t got it today” (Letters, 30 January). He asked for his epitaph to be “That darkie fellow what reads the Guardian” and considered it to be the perfect summing up of his life.
Jennifer Basannavar
Walton on Thames, Surrey
• When we were told not to count our chickens, we didn’t know they were counting us (Bird brain? Study says chicks count like we do, 30 January).
Tricia Pilkington
Rossendale, Lancashire
