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
