Stay-at-home mums who put the hours in

‘I’m a cook, housekeeper and nanny for a man and his four children,’ Louise Cumiskey was advised to reply to those who asked whether she worked when she was a stay-at-home-mother. Photograph: Fiona Goodall/Getty Images

I was a stay-at-home mother, with four sons in six years (Opinion, 20 March). “Do you work?” I was often asked. “Very hard,” I’d reply. People were unimpressed. My mum advised me to answer: “Yes. I’m a cook, housekeeper and nanny for a man and his four children.” Pause for gasps of admiration. “And, if I’m very good, I get to sleep with the boss.” That kept them quiet.
Louise Cumiskey
West Molesey, Surrey

• Your reasons to visit Southend-on-Sea (22 March) omit the two glorious features of the city: the quality of the light over the Thames estuary, particularly at low tide, and the unsurpassable Rossi’s ice cream. I moved away from Southend in 1979 and miss them both.
Elizabeth Atkinson
Highgate, London