Not all Oxford PPE graduates are self-aggrandising politicians or greedy merchant bankers. My daughter studied PPE, got a first-class degree, and is now a health economist working to improve health services in developing countries. Many of her contemporaries share the same morality and objectives. It’s just a shame that society values them so little and that they struggle on low salaries doing what they believe in.
Charles Morris
Norwich
• “From shopping to sex: history’s oddest boycotts” (G2, 27 February) omits perhaps the most famous sex strike of all, that of the Athenian and Spartan women in Aristophanes’ 5th century BC play Lysistrata which brought an end to the Peloponnesian war.
Adrian Brodkin
London
• Here on Salisbury Market (Tuesday and Saturday) you can stock up for the week with fruit and veg – a bargain “pound a (large) bowl”. I have also seen oven-ready grey squirrel on the game stall, albeit with the label “warning, may contain nuts” (Letters, 25 February).
Helena Wright
Salisbury
• The description of delicacies such as Nelson squares (Letters, passim) recalls for me that wonderful Dublin confection known as gur cake. Broken biscuits, cake ends, dried fruit sandwiched between pastry layers, cut into squares and sold (to me anyway) in Woolworths in Grafton Street in the 50s and 60s.
Christine May
Kirkcaldy, Fife
• I have watched the currant theme with excitement waiting for a mention of the currant pastries made by my Grandma and my Mum. Both used leftover pastry, a handful of currants and a sprinkle of sugar to make “wet Nellie”, No idea why it was called that, although we always thought of it as vaguely funny. My Grandma had come from Liverpool to the West Riding of Yorkshire but other than that, no clue.
Susan Watson
Whitby, North Yorkshire
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