Age UK is right to demand that cash is kept as an acceptable payment method (Banks must guarantee access to cash for everyone, says Age UK, 26 June). A visit to the local fish-and-chips shop last week required me to go to an ATM as its payment machine had broken. One is reminded of the fascinating EM Forster short story The Machine Stops, especially as it was written a hundred years ago.
Jonathan Longstaff
Buxted, East Sussex
• The correct pronunciation of words (Pass Notes, 23 June) is something I support. But I also support accuracy in the use of those words: tenterhooks were used for wool, not cotton.
Stephen Hawkins
Edinburgh
• My six-year-old granddaughter was very perturbed by the blatant hugging and kissing in an open-air production of Romeo & Juliet on the banks of the River Avon recently. The stabbings bothered her not one whit.
Dr John Doherty
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire
• My dad used to use our worn-out bottle-green school knickers as cleaning cloths for his car (Letters, 25 June). At a garage to refuel, he whipped out his cloth to wipe the windscreen and was startled when the lad at the pump said: “Ah yes, Tonbridge girls’ grammar school.”
Gill Beauchamp
Kingston upon Thames, Surrey
• Cure for hiccups (Letters, 23 June)? Easy! Place your right thumb in the centre of the palm of your left hand. Take a deep breath. Hold. Exhale. Problem solved.
Fiona Marlow
Tiverton, Devon
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