What a delightful piece by Zoe Williams on still calling her mum Mummy (28 March). My mum is Canadian and I am British. It only occurred to me a few years ago that she has been signing her name Mom in cards to me for 40-odd years and I have been writing her name as Mum for just as many. In an attempt to redress this cultural insensitivity I apologised and asked which she’d prefer. In that wonderfully forgiving way of mums, she said: “It’s fine, I answer to either.”
Lucy Matthews
Liverpool
• In his obituary of Sir John Elliott (24 March), Paul Preston writes that “his books ... had given him hero status in Catalonia. There, over the years, as in Spain, he was showered with prestigious prizes.” This implies that Catalonia is not part of Spain. Is this what Preston believes?
Roger Mortimore
Madrid, Spain
• I don’t understand why David L Gosling (Letters, 28 March) should be so upset at the church’s refusal to approve the removal of Tobias Rustat’s plaque. Reprehensible though it was, slavery was a way of life worldwide for centuries. What does the removal of plaques mean? Will Rustat and his fellow traders feel the rap across their knuckles?
Helen Keating
Gatehouse of Fleet, Dumfries and Galloway
• Let’s have no more suggestions for boiling potatoes please (Letters, 27 March). I don’t want to live in a society where people are hungry, full stop. Let’s all go on a hunger strike for adequate welfare benefits and taxing us pious middle class lot for allowing this to happen.
Jude McGowan
London
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