My husband and I had reason to be grateful for English Heritage’s refusal to lend Vermeer’s The Guitar Player to the blockbuster exhibition in Amsterdam (Report, 25 June). Tickets for the Rijksmuseum had proved impossible to obtain, but on visiting Kenwood House in London, we were able to see this stunning painting at no cost.
Joyce M Boyd
Edinburgh
• Tom Carr suggests a 30-year mortgage (Letters, 26 June). The local authority I worked for in the 1960s lent money to people purchasing houses at a fixed rate for up to 30 years. Borrowing was restricted to twice earnings and defaulting was unheard of.
Jenny Haynes
Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire
