Your obituary (31 October) states that Sean Connery set up the Scottish International Education Trust to help “deprived children”. I received a grant when I was 22. I was going to Yale on a scholarship, which probably did not signal deprivation, as the grant was small. But the encouragement from Connery meant far more than the money. Years later I practically bumped into him in New York. Crossing the street, I heard him before I saw him. “Get outta the way ye schmuck,” he yelled at a cyclist who cut him up. The words were American, but constant with his acting career, the delivery was pure Fountainbridge.
Moyna Flannigan
Edinburgh
• Regarding the reduction of 1,500 head office roles at John Lewis, it’s stated that “as a percentage, it’s almost a third” (Business view, 4 November). In mathematical terms, that statement is 100% incorrect.
Michael Robinson
Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire
• Your report on Antarctic iceberg A-68A (4 November) states that it has “drifted about 1,400km north … to find itself about 500km away from South Georgia”. Are icebergs sentient?
Andrew Simms
Bovingdon, Hertfordshire
• Swede (Letters, 3 November)? Out in East Anglia, when I was a lad, we got mangelwurzels. And we lived in a cardboard box in Grunty Fen.
Peter Russell
Tunbridge Wells, Kent
• What’s wrong with swedes? They make good Halloween lanterns and raw swede is delicious.
Polly Bird
Bedlington, Northumberland
• Should the US pollsters be considering a career change (Polling industry the night’s big loser as 2016 debacle repeats itself, 4 November)?
Lynne Pearson
Plaistow, West Sussex
