All credit to the Virgin Mary for making it into the nominees for “100 women who changed the world” (9 August), but surely the woman from the Bible story who “had the most significant impact on world history” would have to be Eve.
Mike Hine
Kingston upon Thames, Surrey
• During the 1950s, Denis Healey (Letters, passim) was one of very few car owners in our road in north London. When he saw that Laurence Olivier’s Henry V was showing locally, he drove his children and some of their friends to see it – in his Hillman Husky. We enjoyed the car journey more than the film. (The family who moved into the Healeys’ house soon after had a Morris Traveller.)
Elizabeth Monger
Plymouth
• As a junior civil servant waiting in the corridor after a late-night bill reading in parliament in 1980, I remember vividly the rather alarming sight of Mrs Thatcher proceeding like a galleon in full sail, her entourage one pace behind. Reassuringly she was followed by Denis Healey giving a lively rendition of The Ying Tong Song from The Goons.
Chris Mortimer
Hove, East Sussex
• I’m pleased that Arwa Mahdawi doesn’t think it appropriate to call dogs Alan (There’s no debate: you don’t call dogs ‘Alan’, G2, 8 August), but the name doesn’t just suit retired footballers. I am a retired tax specialist.
Alan D Connell
Harrogate, North Yorkshire
• Beer at only £2 a pint in Yorkshire? If you come to my house you can have Yorkshire bitter that costs me 50p a pint to make!
Helen Keating
Gatehouse of Fleet, Dumfries and Galloway
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