How sad that The guide, Somme (Travel, 9 September) merely registers that Butterworth Farm, Pozières, “is named after a missing British soldier”. That soldier was George Butterworth, one of the outstanding composers of his time, great friend of Vaughan Williams and best known for his pieces The Banks of Green Willow and the musical setting for Housman’s poem The Shropshire Lad. When we stayed in this B&B some years ago the owners had CDs of Butterworth’s music for guests to play – a moving experience as we looked out on the field where he died.
Chris Scarlett
Sheffield
• Geoffrey Boycott was dull, played for himself, ran out colleagues and made rash declarations. No wonder Theresa May’s a fan (‘Boring? No, he’s stuck at it’: May bowled over by Boycott, 9 September).
Alasdair McKee
Lancaster
• Max Bell is clearly wrong to call Steely Dan’s Countdown to Ecstasy the greatest rock album ever made (Letters, 9 September) – but only in using the bluntly inadequate “rock” to describe music so beautiful, acute and beguilingly genre-defying.
Lindsay Camp
Bristol
• Ian Grieve may feel safe from speeding cyclists and pedestrians inside his canal boat (Letters, 8 September) but it will be a different story if he ventures on to the towpath. Canal and River Trust even has a campaign to reduce the risks involved: “Share the Space, Drop your Pace”.
Marion Birch
Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire
• Time spent last week reading Guardian coverage of Brexit: 2 hours 15 minutes. Time spent solving Suguru puzzle: 6 minutes. Please make the Sugurus more difficult so that I can have a better balance in my life.
John Shanahan
Manchester
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