Emma Beddington has opened my heart (How do I stay in touch with my sons at university without seeming tragic and needy?, 30 October). In 1965, aged 22, my husband and I left university and Northumberland for jobs in the south, a foreign country. My mother-in-law sent me boxes of snowdrops, wrapped in damp cotton wool, picked from the banks of the River Aln that flowed through the village.
Letters from my late mother showed that she sent pound notes for us to have a “nice meal”. Occasionally, a box of kippers arrived from the fishing side of the family. The tradition continued to the next generation, with letters full of love. But by then, the spending money had risen to £5.
Jean Jackson
Seer Green, Buckinghamshire
