I too have rooted out an old issue of the Guardian (Letters, 17 January). The themes are familiar: stinging criticism of a government obsessed by one topic and which has achieved little else; in the US, troop deployments in an embattled Washington; a president threatening legal action; in Ireland, shortages of food; in northern England, factory closures. This is the Manchester Guardian for 3 August 1864.
Jon Bardsley
Manchester
• I’ve not checked out the local explorer bingo challenge myself (Letters, 19 January), but certainly will. I know that horse-mounting steps can be found at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich.
Maggie Jones
Blackheath, London
• It’s a bit of a step, but if Ruth Eversley can make her way north to Wednesbury, she will find a horse-mounting block reputed to have been used by John Wesley to preach to the masses. Legend has it that the crowd threatened to throw him down the town well for his pains.
Roy Boffy
Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands
• Just to amend your obituary of David Shutt (15 November), Quakers are not committed to “unpopular causes”, but have a commitment to causes such as peace and equality, which tend to make them unpopular with the rich and powerful.
Alison Leonard
Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire
• Regarding ice on the top of an indoor goldfish bowl in January 1963 (Letters, 19 January), in the same month I remember seeing a wondrous sight in my aunt’s bedroom – her false teeth frozen into the glass by her bed.
Denis Nightingale
Stithians, Cornwall
