My mother, British born and bred, became an alien in 1944 when she married my father, a Belgian citizen then serving in the Royal Air Force (Letters, 17 May). The day after the wedding, she had to report to the local police station. She only regained her full British citizenship in 1949 when the British Nationality Act 1948 “allowed” British women married to foreigners to retain their nationality. And they wonder why there was a feminist movement.
Christine De Poortere
London
• Your article on cultural venues reopening (From brutal Dubuffet to nice guy Nero: what to see as art exhibitions open, 14 May) mentions just one in north-east England between Yorkshire and the Scottish border. There are many theatres and small independent venues in this region; it is not a cultural wasteland.
Ros Ward
Durham
• You say “family-friendly policies such as Sure Start were swept away by austerity” (Editorial, 16 May). No they were not. Austerity was not an act of God, it was a political decision. These policies and many others of value were swept away by the Conservative government.
Hazel McGee
Clandon, Surrey
• Kate Moore’s letter (When pubs leave parents out in the cold, 17 May) reminds me of a sign in a pub: “Dogs and well-behaved children welcome. Please keep them on a lead.”
Jim Waight
Hertford
• I still have my National Registration ID card from 1951. Can I use it to enable me to vote (Johnson’s voter ID checks are not about electoral fraud, they’re about power, 18 May)?
Peter Curbishley
Great Durnford, Wiltshire
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