Our passion for Illya Kuryakin had faded by the time I saw ❤️ used for the word love

David McCallum, left, as Illya Kuryakin in The Man from UNCLE, which was first broadcast in 1964, along with his co-stars Robert Vaughn (Napoleon Solo) and Leo G Carroll (Alexander Waverly). Photograph: Mgm/Sportsphoto/Allstar

I suspect that Liz Taylor (Letters, 29 August) is either misremembering her school pencil case or is 10 years younger than I am. She is unlikely to have drawn “I ❤ Illya” on it. The first time I saw the heart symbol used for the word “love” was in the I ❤ New York advertising campaign, which Wikipedia tells me dates from 1977. The Man from UNCLE was of course on TV in the 1960s.

By the time Victoria Wood wrote the play Talent (which I saw at the Crucible in Sheffield in 1978), our love for Illya was already nostalgic – as evidenced by the closing lines of the song 14 Again: “When I was funny, I was famous, I was never ignored / I was a crazy girl, I had to laugh / I had Illya Kuryakin’s autograph / I had no idea you could wake up feeling bored.”

(I’ll try to get out more, but there’s a THRUSH outside my window…)
Wendy Bradley
Sheffield

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