In defence of the rat, it was fascinating to read about a day in the life of these much maligned and misunderstood rodents (Eat, spray, love: a day in the life of one of Britain’s 80 million rats, 16 January). I have been researching the role that rats have played in wartime for a new book. During the first world war, they became so prolific that the British Army appointed an “official rat catcher on the western front”, a naturalist called Philip Gosse. During the second world war, the Special Operations Executive developed explosive rats, while our most famous armoured division was the Desert Rats.
Just before Christmas, the Ministry of Defence stated that both Ukrainian and Russian troops are experiencing very high levels of rat and mice infestations along large parts of the front. With the cold weather, rodents have been sheltering in vehicles and defensive positions where they have been gnawing through cables. Reports also suggest that Russian units are starting to suffer from increased sickness, which troops attribute to the pest problem (Russia-Ukraine war: frontline troops suffering from ‘exceptional rat and mice infestation’, 23 December). The Ukrainian army in its battle with the Russians could learn a lot from studying the role of rats in both world wars.
Nicholas Milton
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire
• A fascinating article and a terrific headline. There is a thriving rat population on the railway embankment in Winchester, with plenty of houses with dustbins as well as a good supply of dropped kebabs on the way to the late night train. Every so often it gets out of hand and Network Rail puts down bait boxes of poison, which I always feel rather torn about.
Sometime last spring, I noticed a dead rat on the parapet of the railway bridge near our house. I was surprised that no one else seemed to have noticed it, and waited for it to disappear, either to be eaten or pushed over on to the embankment. But it remained, presumably too toxic, having been poisoned, to be eaten by anything else. So I waited and waited. By October, there wasn’t much left except two huge yellow teeth and some bedraggled fur. I haven’t looked lately as it’s overgrown with ivy.
I’m trying to work it into a metaphor for the half a million pounds that our almost bankrupt Hampshire county council is about to spend on a vastly over-engineered and unpopular “trial” road crossing by the bridge (John Harris, 14 January).
Judith Martin
Winchester
• Do you have a photograph you’d like to share with Guardian readers? If so, please click here to upload it. A selection will be published in our Readers’ best photographs galleries and in the print edition on Saturdays.
