Fake books are older than you seem to think (Fake books: the controversial interiors trend for literary pretenders, 1 May). Charles Dickens created “faux-aged spines” to line the door of his study at Gad’s Hill Place, his house in Kent. He gave them such titles as History of a Short Chancery Suit in Twelve Volumes, and Hansard’s Guide to Refreshing Sleep. I doubt it was to show people that he was literate.
Harland Walshaw
Lympstone, Devon
• I would love to see Adrian Chiles’s gardening show (The unspoken truth about gardening? It is a relentless, unwinnable war, 4 May) as I too come from the Attila the Hun school of gardening, and feel I never got far enough to learn from the others.
Margaret Squires
St Andrews, Fife
• Re getting a goat for the garden (Letters, 4 May), that is exactly what some friends did. Matters went well until the goat took a shine to the lady of the house – and then began attacking the male of the house at every opportunity.
Andrew Krokou
London
• May I respond to the letters printed under the heading “Voting, not direct action, remains the best way to protest” (3 May) by quoting an old aphorism: “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”
Tim Barker
Eastington, Gloucestershire
• The head of my boarding school wrote in my report: “Patricia must realise that rules are made for the good of the community and not as a personal challenge” (Letters, 3 May).
Prof Patricia Fosh
Battle, East Sussex
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