Sir Roger Bannister (Obituary, 5 March) completed our undergraduate diploma in creative writing in 2009, and attended our annual awards ceremony in the Sheldonian, which I thought was nice, as he must have had more awards than he knew what to do with. Afterwards, he sought me out to say how great the course had been, and how much he’d enjoyed receiving his award. Why can’t everyone be like that?
Professor Jonathan Michie
Director, Continuing Education, University of Oxford
• When asked what difference his sudden fame had made, Roger Bannister replied: “When I went on training runs there was a little boy who used to call after me: ‘Who do you think you are? Sydney Wooderson?’ After the four-minute mile, he used to call ‘Who do you think you are? Roger Bannister?’”
Huw Kyffin
Canterbury
• I usually look forward to the humanity of your regular correspondent, Ian Grieve, from his vessel on the Shropshire Union canal, but when I read (Letters, 1 March) that he was offering bacon sandwiches to volunteers who clean the canal, and then turned the page to the long read to the headline “Bacon really is killing us”, I began to have doubts…
Brendan Kelly
London
• As peanut-butter eaters of several decades and not fadistas of any cultish foods. So we were surprised that your article (Crunch time, G2, 1 March) made no mention of Meridian peanut butter. According to the label it contains just peanuts, has no added palm oil, sugar or salt and is made in the UK. It is readily available in supermarkets and some shops stock large pots.
Joyce and John Fisher
Hitchin, Hertfordshire
• Terry Pratchett “wrote more than 70 books in his lifetime” (Report, 3 March). Afterlives and deferred-activation text-generating computer programs notwithstanding, when else?
Francis Harvey
Bristol
• Re rainbows (Letters, 2 March), I prefer the cultural version. Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain.
Steve Moore
Leumeah, New South Wales, Australia
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