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Anne Robinson’s nuns SIR: Julia Ross Williamson (Letters, July issue) complains – again – about my harmless anecdote about Farnborough Hill Convent where we were both boarders. Accounts may vary. This includes my view that the nuns too often passed on their fault-finding and pickiness and only a few of us escaped with our sense of irony intact. Anne Robinson, Gloucestershire
Nott correct SIR: Re: Sasha Swire’s father (July issue, page 33): Nott, not Knott. Yours, Roger Scowen, Hampton, Middlesex
I guarded Speer, too SIR: The article ‘I guarded Albert Speer’ (July issue) is inaccurate in the writer’s claim to be ‘the last person alive who regularly spoke with Speer in prison’. I am 85 years old and served with the Royal Scots in Berlin from 1957 to ’59. We rotated with the other Axis powers and Russia in guarding Speer, von Schirach and Hess. Just thought you might like to know. Alan Booth, Los Angeles, California
Spandau supermarket SIR: Following the recent article on Rudolf Hess (I Once Guarded, August issue), I am reminded that there was concern that Spandau Prison might become a sort of shrine to the Nazi past. As soon as Hess died, the prison was razed to the ground and construction of a large NAAFI was started. Given the sharpness of the soldiers’ and airmen’s minds, we were not in the least surprised that the new edifice was immediately dubbed Hessco. David Greenway, Group Captain, Anna Valley, Hampshire
‘We reserve this area for people who begin every response with “So…” ’
elaborate cuisine and, like him, would have blamed holidays abroad for the influence of what she called ‘foreign muck’. She loved a song, performed by Bernard Cribbins, that described the perils of a package holiday, and included the words: We ordered steak and chips. They brought us something stewed. It smelled like it was off, And looked like something rude. O tempora, o mores! Yours, David Culver, London SE9
Itchy bottoms SIR: Valerie Crossley’s article (August issue) brought back uncomfortable memories. Worse than our swimming costumes’ accentuating our lumps and bumps, the wool made our bottoms itch for hours after we had taken them off. I still recall my mother’s voice in seaside boarding houses at supper time saying, ‘For goodness’ sake, sit still, William.’ William Wood, Maulds Meaburn, Cumbria
Bernard Cribbins on food
Fish scales
SIR: My late mother would have heartily agreed with Ray Connolly’s views of
SIR: Theodore Dalrymple ponders as to whether 175 grams of fish is too much for
44 The Oldie September 2021
one person. I wouldn’t have a clue, and I suspect many if not most of your readers would feel the same. Just over six ounces of fish, however, I would consider to be about right for one. Regards, Alan Haile, London SW6
The Royals in India SIR: The magnificent illustration of Queen Victoria’s L&NWR Saloon from Christopher Valkoinen’s book Railways: A History in Drawings brings to mind a visit to the National Railway Museum in New Delhi, which exhibits the saloon cars of the Prince of Wales and the Maharajas of Indore and Mysore. These are kept locked but, for a very reasonable fee of Rs 50 per family (about 50p), one can have a private view of the three saloons, and very impressive they are, too.
The Prince of Wales’s Saloon, built for his visit to India, 1875-76
