This is nothing new (Accent discrimination is alive and kicking in England, study suggests, 12 June). In the 1960s, I spent my student summer vacations working in tourism on the south coast. Most of the guests were southerners and many found my strong Lancashire accent “funny”. I would ask how they pronounced bath and grass, and they would answer “barth” and “grarss”. “How about ass?” I’d ask. They would stop and consider the errors of their ways.
Ian Winstanley
Ashton-in-Makerfield, Greater Manchester
• Three cheers for Chitra Ramaswamy (Can workers cram five days worth of work into four days? Mothers already do, 9 June). It makes me smile, but also despair, when I hear a new mum talking about when she will be “going back to work”. Parenting is an unrelenting, 24/7 job, so the proper term for returning to paid work should be “taking on a second job”.
Sue Edwards
Sidmouth, Devon
