Your fascinating article on leg-lengthening (9 November) says the apparatus for this was first used in the UK in 1989. I had polio in 1957, which left me with one leg shorter than the other. It was stretched by just over an inch – with what sounds very like the apparatus you refer to – in the Nuffield orthopaedic centre in Oxford in 1963, when I was 10.
Ian Lewis
Hope Mansell, Herefordshire
• When I was teaching in East Sussex, the school put on a production of James and the Giant Peach. “Who do we think should play the two aunts?” I asked staff in my Liverpool accent (Letters, 8 November). A puzzled (southern) teacher said: “There are no ants in James and the Giant Peach.”
Sue Leyland
Hunmanby, North Yorkshire
• Whenever I cross the Chirk aqueduct into Wales, I always cut my speed from a fast and furious 4mph to a leisurely 2mph (Letters, 9 November), which allows me to wallow in the joy of living under a devolved government, far, far away from Westminster.
Ian Grieve
Gordon Bennett, Llangollen Canal
• Re your report (Six out of 10 people in UK oppose Qatar hosting World Cup over anti-gay laws, 7 November), as a newspaper that takes human rights seriously, shouldn’t the Guardian boycott any reporting of the World Cup?
Dr Pierre Chardaire
Norwich
• There was so much to enjoy in Lev Parikian’s country diary (10 November), but the image of a crow “rowing” across the sky was particularly inspired. Brilliant.
Carolyn Peck
Whitchurch Canonicorum, Dorset
• Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication.
