Catherine Kelly tells Elle Hunt that “to go to the sea is synonymous with letting go” (We do like to be beside the seaside, 4 November). My mother gave us two good reasons for taking this literally. She insisted that if she was still alive, she wanted to celebrate her 90th birthday with lunch at her favourite Scarborough fish and chip restaurant. Four generations joined her to do just that and after lunch we headed for the Spa on the seafront. Having achieved her final ambition, she went into rapid decline and died six weeks later. On the day she died, my wife, daughter and I decided to go to Whitby by train and bus. Two celebrations courtesy of the Yorkshire coast.
Geoff Reid
Bradford
• It is good advice to suggest cod liver oil to avoid a vitamin D deficiency (G2, 4 November). However, most cod liver oil in this country is so highly processed that the vitamin D and A content is totally destroyed and has to be re-added in synthetic form. There may be issues with absorption and toxicity when taking the synthetic version of these vitamins. It is possible to obtain “real” cod liver oil online.
Jessica Barfield
Enjoy Nutrition, Harrogate
• To the list of successful escape methods from East Germany (The briefing, 4 November) might be added the home-built aeroplane, powered by a couple of MZ motorbike engines, which I saw in a museum in Germany. In spite of its rather rustic appearance, it successfully carried its builder and his family to the west.
Sebastian Robinson
Glasgow
• In Hyde, Cheshire, we also used to call it “cob-coaling” (Letters, 5 November), though we collected wood and not nutty slack.
Jane McAdoo
London
• In my Lancashire village in the 1940s groups of children went from house to house singing “We come a-cob-coaling for bonfire day.” It was quite a folk song in its entirety.
Margaret de Roussier
Lincoln
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