A super Saturday for England rugby, The Posh and Brexit
Your review of the Pre-Raphaelite Sisters exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery (17 October) says that in the mid-19th century “for a woman, art school was not an option”. The early art schools, established from the 1830s to enhance the design skills available to British manufacturers, ran from their beginnings (separate) classes for women. Indeed classes for governesses were a particular moneyspinner. Elizabeth Siddal herself was a student at Sheffield School of Art in 1857.
Tim Machin
Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire
• A sentence in the article about intergenerational friendship (Age is just a number, Weekend, 19 October) left me puzzled. The wisdom of the silent generation is apparently shared at Hampstead Ladies Pond “while naked, tits akimbo”. I know that as we age there are parts of us that are not as perky as they used to be – but suggesting that they might be bent at a sharp angle and resting on our hips is taking things much too far.
Frances Wilson
Old Leake, Lincolnshire
• Your Eyewitness photograph (18 October) is spooky. Not least because your caption does not acknowledge its peculiarity. In a busy street filled with “everyday Soho people” there is not one woman. Surely they/we weren’t all inside waiting to service the men? I wasn’t.
Susannah Clapp
London
• England emphatically beat Australia in the Rugby World Cup, the PM fails to get his Brexit bill through parliament, and Peterborough United beat Gillingham away. Now that’s what I call a “super Saturday” (Your armchair guide…, 19 October).
Toby Wood
Peterborough
• The letter on misuse of English abroad (19 October) reminded me of Gerald Hoffnung seeing a notice in a French hotel saying “A French widow in every bedroom”.
Mike Eggenton
Firbeck, South Yorkshire
