Regarding songs about British places (Letters, 25 February), no list would be complete without Marty Wilde’s Abergavenny, Fiddler’s Dram’s Day Trip to Bangor and Elton John’s paean to Grimsby.
Danny Bethell
Hollesley, Suffolk
• I remember a popular song from 1946 by the Merry Macs extolling the virtues of Ashby-de-la-Zouch by the sea. I thought that seems a nice place for a visit. It was only later on that I found out it was neither French and nowhere near the sea.
Bill Beuden
Poole, Dorset
• Re Lev Parikian on the greater spotted woodpecker he hears in Streatham Common, London (Country Diary, 26 February), if he came to my local park he might be lucky enough to hear a lesser spotted woodpecker who has learned to drum on TV aerials and ladders to amplify the sound for territorial advantage.
Sue Ball
Brighton, East Sussex
• MiniDiscs are still going strong in my house (Letters, 25 February). Years ago, I took the trouble to buy some spare MiniDisc players on eBay. I still thrill to the whirr of these little cookies as they play back the last recordings I made of my late mother, chatting with us before she developed dementia. Playback from other media would spoil the original effect.
Bob Corkey
Kilmuckridge, County Wexford
• A falschfahrer (Letters, 24 February) crossing into Austria becomes a geisterfahrer, into Holland a spookrijder and into France a conducteur fantôme (all translating as ghost driver).
Dr John Doherty
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire
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