Almost 40 years ago my parents, after staying with us for almost a week and, as I thought, enjoying eating our vegetarian food, started talking about the delicious meat pies my mother made. The next day I made a sausage-and-egg pie using Sosmix (Adrian Chiles, 20 May). My parents took home the packet of Sosmix, and continued to use it whenever they fancied some sausage meat. But it did not convert them to vegetarianism, as they usually had it with bacon and black pudding.
Gillian Patton
Sunderland
• Health workers do not “give their lives” as suggested in a headline in Saturday’s paper (Those who gave their lives are remembered, 23 May). They are not crusaders or soldiers. They go to work in absurdly dangerous conditions. Some get sick and tragically die. Please stop making it sound as if they choose to die.
Colleen Darby
Manchester
• Lord Clark of Windermere asks if others have seen an albino pheasant (Letters, 22 May). I have, on 12 November, in Dallam Park, near Milnthorpe. The same bird, maybe?
Dr Val Robson
Milnthorpe, Cumbria
• I played the tennis-ball-in-tights game (Letters, 22 May) in York in the 50s, using my mother’s old stockings since tights were not yet available. It was a popular game for girls.
Christine McElheran Dipper
Hornsea, East Yorkshire
• Who has ever paid £20 for breakfast (Hadley Freeman’s Weekend column, 23 May)? I’ve rarely paid that for dinner (drinks not included).
Leigh Stenson
Eggleston, County Durham
