I am no great fan of Damien Hirst’s work, but there is precedent in the matter of making substitutions in the later construction of artworks (Damien Hirst formaldehyde animal works dated to 1990s were made in 2017, 19 March). When the Tate Gallery acquired Carl Andre’s Equivalent VIII in 1972, the tabloid press made a huge fuss about spending public money on “a pile of bricks” – and became further incensed when it transpired that they were not even the “original” bricks, just similar firebricks that Andre had gone out and bought.
Francis Blake
London
• As a primary teacher in 1993, I had pupils planting trees near the school. We “grew some more in ’94” and I look forward to seeing how many “are alive in ’25” (Letters, 19 March). Fortunately they were planted away from the council vandals and should outlive me.
Les Forester
Greetland, West Yorkshire
• The penny toilet was introduced at the Great Exhibition of 1851. To keep pace with inflation, spending the proverbial amount would cost £1.75 today, so maybe 50p isn’t such bad value (Letters, 24 March).
Henry Malt
Bythorn, Cambridgeshire
• In 1892, when the illusionist John Nevil Maskelyne invented the coin-operated toilet door lock, spending a penny cost 54p in today’s money.
Richard Cleaves
Bridgend
• If I had a spare £4,000 to buy a luxury “ironing system” (Report, 24 March), I think I would rather pay someone to do the ironing.
Marie Paterson
Nuneaton, Warwickshire
• Do you have a photograph you’d like to share with Guardian readers? If so, please click here to upload it. A selection will be published in our Readers’ best photographs galleries and in the print edition on Saturdays.
