Jess Cartner-Morley is excited by the “scarf coat”, which she describes as “a genuinely new kind of coat” (Fashion, 20 September). She might enjoy the charming 1961 film Murder She Said, in which Margaret Rutherford (born 1892), as Miss Marple, dons and wears a distinctive “scarf coat” in numerous scenes. I am sure it wasn’t new then, either.
Kirsty Nicol
Ormiston, East Lothian
I had a scarf coat in 1965, when I was 13 – an emerald green wool mix, with a black fringed scarf attached, from C&A. I loved it.
Jo Ramsey
Stromness, Orkney
Very much enjoyed your article (Experience: We’re the caretakers of an uninhabited Irish island, 20 September), as related by people whom I can only assume to be Schrödinger’s islanders.
Gerald Dennett
Fylingdales, North Yorkshire
Messrs Ford and Forsyth (Letters, 26 September) may argue about which was the first 90s dad to carry their offspring in a sling; I often carried my daughter in the 80s, from Bloomsbury to the South Bank – and back – walking all the way (maybe a touch slower on the way back).
Tom Stubbs
Surbiton, London
As a retired schoolteacher, I am able to declare that the only “freebies” available to teachers are the current year’s flu viruses and nits (Keir Starmer and top Labour colleagues to stop taking clothes gifts from donors, 20 September).
John Oldroyd
Kilchattan, Isle of Colonsay
