My camera never lies – but it’s sometimes vague | Brief letters

Photographic records | Treatment of refugees | Useful old tech | A toast to tradition

On our backpacking holidays abroad years ago, my husband and I took lots of photos, which we developed when we returned home (I’ve taken 263 photos since arriving in Venice, my husband has taken five – it would be nice to have a few more of me, 21 November). Our problem is that we know the year and the country, but failed to write the date and the place on the back of the photos.
Helen Evans
Ruthin, Denbighshire

• A number of refugees have been placed in a hotel in my village for the past few months. Not a “luxury boutique hotel”, as described by one tabloid, but one that previously housed rough sleepers. They attend the local church and volunteer in our community cafe. They were told they were to be moved on this week, but not where or why. Let’s pray it is not a detention centre. But they are treated with such a lack of humanity by the Home Office that no one would be surprised.
David Simpson
Datchet, Berkshire

• Your article (‘My friends call me the BlackBerry queen!’ Meet the people clinging on to old tech – from faxes to VCRs, 23 November) fails to discuss something much longer-lasting – the fountain pen. I am currently using a Sheaffer pen made about 95 years ago. A 10-year-old BlackBerry might be entertaining, but it won’t be here in another 85 years – the pen probably will.
Dr Emile de Sousa
Cobham, Surrey

• I was given a Casio HL-101 pocket calculator as a work leaving present in 1980. It’s still on my desk getting regular exercise.
John O’Dwyer
Steeple Claydon, Buckinghamshire

• I smiled at this article (Oldest cooked leftovers ever found suggest Neanderthals were foodies, 23 November) as I realised my wife is maintaining a 70,000-year-old tradition when she regularly burns her breakfast toast.
John Ellel
Burgess Hill, West Sussex

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