This was a very northern-hemisphere-centric list (Eight of the world’s most amazing trees – from the Major Oak to the Lone Cypress, 6 October). New Zealand’s Tāne Mahuta, the largest kauri tree and around 2,000 years old, deserves a mention on any list of the greatest trees. Australians will probably think their 200m-year-old Wollemi pine, a tree so precious that its location is a closely guarded secret, also deserves a mention.
Dr Ian Watson
Auckland, New Zealand
• I too am a child of the 1950s (Letters, 8 October). My school regulation green knickers actually featured a pocket. Imagine the frantic, embarrassed fumbling if it were ever put to use.
Marianne Chipperfield
London
• I sense Keir Starmer is in a situation well-known to any horse owner. As the saying goes, there are two things you won’t be short of: advice and horseshit. The trick is to know the difference.
Roger Osborne
Scarborough, North Yorkshire
• If Rishi Sunak thinks politics is broken, he can call an election and change it all (Rishi Sunak’s speech showed what’s next for the Tories – and it isn’t him, 4 October).
David Smith
Emeritus professor of sociology, Middlesex University
• If one accepts the definition of a sport – “all parties should be willing participants” – that Dr John Davies (Letters, 9 October) refers to, I’d say that that rules out school cross-country runs, hockey, and rugby matches against the teachers.
Ian Grieve
Gordon Bennett, Llangollen canal
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