Ideas of “illegitimacy” (Letters, 17 April) remained potent for some at least as late as the 1990s. When I registered my firstborn, I refused to say whether I was married and insisted my partner’s name also go on the certificate. The registrar, horrified, told me: “But then your child will be registered as illegitimate!” I had to point out to her that illegitimacy had not been a legal category for some time. But I didn’t tell her that I’d been born in a mother-and-baby home. I found her words ridiculous, but they could as easily have been an unnecessary (and inaccurate) cruelty.
Naomi Standen
Birmingham
• As the 1 May local elections near, Nigel Farage’s campaign is featured in every media outlet. The reports seem to suggest that it consists of a pub crawl around the country. I wonder if Farage is aware of the Alex Glasgow song As Soon As This Pub Closes (The Revolution Starts)?
Keith Flett
Tottenham, London
• Lucy Mangan has done it again. Her review of 999: The Critical List (21 April) is so beautifully written, so sympathetic and so despairing that it had me in tears. And that’s before I watch the show.
Deirdre Burrell
Mortimer, Berkshire
• An engineer says the use of stolen electricity to power marijuana farms is “a growing problem” (Report, 22 April). Well, quite.
Philip Clarke
East Bridgford, Nottinghamshire
• Londoner Terry Bates informs us that newspapers cost less than a cup of coffee (Letters, 20 April). Up here, it’s less than a pint.
Pete Bibby
Sheffield
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