Re your article (Clarion call: recorder fans warn instrument heading for extinction, 5 June), the recorder can indeed be a “tool of torture” when seven-year-olds are presented with the opportunity to play it. The temptation to “toot” when asked not to can be irresistible. In my school, persistent offenders were asked to “play” the ruler, which is not as much fun but a lot quieter.
Melanie White
Reading, Berkshire
• So recorders are heading for extinction – that’s modern life for you. I still have mine, 65 years on. Wrapped in the tune book and zipped into a knitting bag, it made a handy cosh in the playground.
Rita Gallard
Norwich
• Re Vulcan’s clue (Letters, 5 June), Sally Cheseldine did not quote the clue in full. The question mark changes the dynamic. Looked at literally, well woman clinic reads clinic for women who are well, ie hypochondriacs.
Bonnie Wade
Norwich
• I’m not defending Rishi Sunak’s use of helicopters for short trips (Sunak takes RAF chopper to Dover, just over an hour away by train, 5 June), but considering I can get a flight from Nottingham to Spain for £20, when you say a return train ticket from London to Dover costs “as little as” £48, you mean “as much as”, don’t you?
Pete Lavender
Nottingham
• Re your report on sewage (27 May), in a recent local election in Galway where there were problems with sewage effluent in the water supply, one candidate said that if the current councillors were returned people would be voting for “more shit in the water”.
Tom Gelletlie
Rathnew, County Wicklow, Ireland
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