At the school where I taught English in the 1980s, we had report books with carbon paper, so the teacher could retain a copy. For one pupil’s English report (Letters, 5 February), my copy read: “With greater effort, he would attain a curacy.” I never did find out whether I was right.
Robert Gifford
Stony Stratford, Buckinghamshire
• “Better in the literary than the analytical side of the subject” was how my history teacher described my work in 1958. What a charming way of telling my parents that I was good at writing rubbish.
Warwick Hillman
Pinner, London
• On my last term’s report at the end of primary school circa 1961, my male class teacher wrote: “Janet has a mind of her own. Woe betide the man who stands in her way.” Tell that to my husband of 49 years.
Janet Howe
London
• If a significant number of Labour MPs believe that the best way to defeat a rightwing party is to take on its policies (Group of Labour MPs urge No 10 to be tougher on migration to fend off Reform, 4 February), we are lost as a nation.
Nigel Gann
Lichfield, Staffordshire
• Is an “edible gardener” (Journal, 3 February) the ultimate in green sustainability? Grow your own vegetables, then eat the gardener. But what do you do the next year?
Derek Wakelin
Broadway, Worcestershire
• An intriguing piece by Jess Cartner-Morley (‘Money does not whisper – it shouts’: how Trump 2.0 ushered in a brutish new era of power dressing, 4 February), but I suggest Bob Dylan put it best: “Money doesn’t talk, it swears.”
Mike Pender
Cardiff
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