I was my parents’ first child, born in 1951. There was no support from the state for the first child then, only for subsequent children. If you wanted a child, it was up to you. So I find it hard to sympathise with those who oppose the proposal to cut benefits for a third child (Editorial, 3 April). And no, my family was not well off.
Deborah Loe
Maidenhead, Berkshire
• Robert Anderson seems to be under the impression that the Boat Race is “truly amateur” (Letters, 4 April). Not only are the overwhelming majority of the participants from expensive, elite educational establishments, but the whole event is also funded by commercial sponsorship and broadcasting fees of about £1m. The most expensive equipment and the best coaches that money can buy certainly provide a spectacle for the masseswhile the rowers cement their prosperous futures by further gilding their CVs. Little of this is done “for the love of it”.
Dr Neil Wigglesworth
Author, The Social History of English Rowing
• I thought the enduring appeal of the Boat Race (Letters, 5 April) was the possibility that one of the boats might sink.
Pete Foster
Devizes, Wiltshire
• Enigmatic, probably; chilly, possibly – but, as George Bernard Shaw liked to point out, the Duke of Wellington was not an Englishman (The art of savage conflict, G2, 4 April). He was born in Dublin, and both his parents were Irish.
Peter Grant
Oxford
• The Faroese Løgting (law-assembly) has claims to the title of the oldest such institution (Letters, passim), meeting originally as an althing in the early 9th century at Tinganes in Torshavn, shortly after the Norse settlement of the islands and 100 years before the Icelandic Althingi.
Austen Lynch
Garstang, Lancashire
• Sometimes a web form will permit the title field to remain blank, or will accept just a space, but most require some sort of input (Letters, 5 April). On one occasion I gave my title as “None” and was delighted to receive in the post some time later a letter addressed to “None John Filsak”.
John Filsak
Peterborough
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
