There was more than “a suggestion” that Guinness was good for new mums in the late 60s (Letters, 21 August). In 1976, when my son was born in University College hospital in London, all new mums were offered a daily small glass of Guinness. I told a nurse I couldn’t drink it as I hated the taste, and she said: “Ask your husband to bring in a bottle of sherry – that’ll build you up.” And there began a lifelong devotion to the healing properties of a pre-dinner manzanilla. Or two.
Lillian Adams
Hereford
• When my dad was dying from cancer in hospital in 1990, he kept asking the nurses for a Guinness, who kept refusing. A doctor intervened and wrote on the notes on the end of his bed: “This man is dying. If he asks for a Guinness, for heaven’s sake give him one.” Sure enough, on the bedside table was a can of Guinness with a prescription label on it stating: “Administer orally, as and when requested by patient.”
Pete Lavender
Woodthorpe, Nottingham
