Oriel Malet Photo: PAMELA CHANDLER/ARENAPAL

Oriel Malet, who has died aged 91, was a British aristocrat and gifted novelist who embraced the bohemian life in France.

Born Auriel Rosemary Malet Vaughan on January 20 1923, she was the youngest child of the 7th Earl of Lisburne and his wife, the Chilean beauty Regina de Bittencourt. Her early years were spent at the family home, Crosswood (Trascoed), in Cardiganshire, where she received most of her education from a French governess, “Mingo” Kaiser, who instilled in her an abiding love of all things French.

Auriel Vaughan (or Oriel Malet, as she styled herself) wrote from an early age, completing her first novel, Trust in the Springtime, when she was only 16. It was published when she was 20, and three years later her second book, My Bird Sings, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for young novelists . With her £50 prize money she bought a motorcycle.

By this time Oriel was already living in Paris, initially at the Villa Racine in rue Racine. She became close friends with the American folk singers Gordon Heath and Lee Payant, who performed nightly at L’Abbaye, a tiny bar illuminated only by candlelight in the rue de Furstemberg, beside the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés; the audience were instructed to click their fingers rather than applaud so as not to disturb those attending church across the street.

Another close friend was the actress Yvonne Arnaud, who stood as Oriel’s godmother when she converted to Roman Catholicism in the 1940s. In 1961 Oriel Malet would publish a memoir of Arnaud, entitled Marraine.

Oriel Malet was not yet 30 when she wrote Jam Today, an account of her early years in Paris, and she was an occasional contributor to the “Letter From Paris” feature in Tatler. In the mid-1950s she moved into a houseboat on the Seine at Neuilly. It was moored next to the houseboat occupied by Françoise Sagan, author of A Certain Smile and Bonjour Tristesse.

During a flash flood, Oriel fell into the river and would have been swept away but for the quick thinking of Sagan’s butler, who fished her out of the water with a boathook. To avoid further such calamities Oriel Malet went to live with her close friends Toto Barreyre, the historian and critic , and his wife Tototte, who had a flat on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne and a small house near Verneuil in Normandy .

She published several novels during the 1950s, the last of which, The Horses of the Sun, won praise from the critics; but before Putnam’s could reprint it to meet the rising demand there was a national printing strike, and by the time the industrial action was over the moment had passed. Oriel Malet suffered another setback when her accountant absconded with most of her capital. She was forced to earn her living as a translator, and had no time to concentrate on novels.

Oriel Malet had a gift for friendship, and one of her most enduring was with Daphne du Maurier, whom she had met at a cocktail party given by their mutual American publisher, Doubleday, in the early 1950s . For 30 years she and du Maurier wrote to one another weekly, exchanging confidences and discussing their literary projects. Oriel Malet published her correspondence with du Maurier, Letters from Menabilly, in 2000.

In all, she wrote 12 novels, but without fulfilling her early promise. Late in life, she spent several years researching a life of St Thérèse of Lisieux, and a fictional work about Oscar Wilde’s last days; both works, however, remain unpublished.

In 2003 Persephone Books reprinted her account, written in 1946, of the 19th-century Scots child diarist Marjory Fleming, who died in 1811 at the age of eight.

As a young woman Oriel Malet became engaged to an officer in the Welsh Guards, but he was killed in the war. She remained unmarried.

Oriel Malet, born January 20 1923, died October 14 2014

We utterly reject Daniel Filmus’s remarks in his interview with Luke Harding (Falklands: Argentina warns drilling could lead to oil disaster, 27 October) and the implication that hydrocarbons activities carried out by the Falkland Islands government are environmentally reckless. The Falkland Islands have a long history of responsible environmental stewardship, and we pride ourselves on protecting and safeguarding our unique environment.

The Falkland Islands government has responsibility for issuing licences and regulating the industry, and extraction offshore is regulated to UK North Sea standards, which are recognised as one of the highest standards of safety regulation anywhere in the world. The government is committed to transparency, and all environmental impact statements submitted are made available for public consultation.

Mr Filmus’s portrayal of the Falkland Islands hydrocarbons industry is skewed, alarmist, and represents yet another example of the Argentine government’s futile efforts to damage the Falklands economy. It is in no way an accurate description of the flourishing industry that is already planning its next round of drilling in 2015, nor the commitments the Falkland Islands government has made to developing an oil and gas industry that is economically and ecologically sustainable.
Roger Edwards
Chair of the legislative assembly of the Falkland Islands

It is disappointing that, having led the G2 section with a piece on the press “monstering” Labour leaders (In the line of fire, 11 November), you should then argue (Editorial, 11 November) that Labour should raise its game, not change its leader. Given that the rightwing media simultaneously smear Ed Miliband while not reporting his arguments, how, pray, is Labour expected to have its voice heard?

Monstering the leader and shadow cabinet, ignoring the arguments, and repeating falsehoods such as Labour was responsible for the global recession is part of a concerted strategy and very difficult to counter. Kinnock was unable to do it, Blair did it having sold his soul to Murdoch, and Brown, an honest, decent man, faced an impossible struggle.

What your editorial might have reflected upon is why, given hostile media coverage and a weak recovery stimulated by “help to buy”, Labour is still managing to do so well? If you asked on the doorstep or maybe attended the food bank meeting in Malvern, as I did a few weeks ago, you would realise it is because a large proportion of the population, both waged and unwaged, are suffering.

Given that proposals to cut public expenditure in the next parliament will largely impinge on those least able to bear it, maybe the editors of the national press should raise their game and ask: “Is austerity really necessary?” It hasn’t worked before, is certainly not working in Europe, and the UK had a deficit/GDP ratio far greater than it is at present when it started the NHS, built over a quarter of a million homes a year, and progressively raised the school leaving age. Keynesianism may be a dirty word to some, but to others increasing public expenditure is both a moral and economic imperative.
Stephen Jones
Malvern, Worcestershire

• I have just torn up page 6 of Tuesday’s Guardian (New blow for Miliband as Labour lead shrivels in poll, 11 November) in disgust that a supposedly serious newspaper has chosen to print six deliberately unflattering photographs of the Labour leader addressing the CBI conference. Why? Why is there no report of his speech other than a brief mention in your otherwise negative editorial? Why is there no comment that Mr Miliband’s views on Europe are much more in tune with the CBI’s than the prime minister’s? Alan Johnson is right in saying that this world is obsessed with celebrity and personality. What the voters should demand from politicians is commitment and truth. Mr Miliband can deliver on this.
Judith Brooks
Fleetwood, Lancashire

• I write as Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Orpington, disgusted and demotivated by the suicidal speculation on Ed Miliband’s leadership from my own side. So it was with relief and pleasure that I read Alan Johnson’s excellent piece (I’ve never sought the Labour leadership – and I never will, 11 November).

Besides displaying admirable loyalty, logic and discipline, Alan also focuses on the Tories’ barefaced rewriting of history, blaming Labour for all the nation’s woes, and absolving their friends and paymasters in the world of finance from any responsibility. Meanwhile David Cameron, George Osborne and Theresa May fail dismally to deliver on their promises.

Alan shows no reluctance to rake over the past and so delivers a withering critique of the coalition government and provides a timely warning that returning Cameron to No 10 will amount to business as usual. In contrast, radical and courageous policies are required, such as Gordon Brown’s refusal to join the euro.

I am sure Labour leaders welcome Alan’s loyalty. I think they would do well to copy his willingness to remind people of the past. That dents the Tories’ claim to economic competence and lays the foundation for the development of considered policy alternatives to eternal austerity, which has been tried but manifestly failed. Thankfully, Ed Miliband has shown some signs of responding along these lines, but they need to be fortified.
Nigel de Gruchy
Orpington, Kent

• Alan Johnson makes a fair defence of Ed Miliband’s leadership of the Labour party. However, his lucid account of the current state of politics and policy serves predominantly to put me in mind of the theory ascribed to the Roman dictator Cincinnatus (519-430 BC) which held that power should only be given to those who want it least.
Professor Gwyneth Boswell
Norwich

• At 84, still a socialist, I despair at the current torpor of the Labour party. After all, it’s been obvious for months, even years, that Ed Miliband has problems that are far more serious than “image”. Yes, he’s intelligent; yes, he has some good and decent policies, though too few; but he thinks and reacts too slowly. His memory lapse during his speech at the Labour party conference is a terrifying glimpse of how he would respond “under fire”.

If he sincerely cares for the future of this country he should resign with dignity, and become “the power behind the throne”, with a more appealing and quick-witted minister to replace him. That would be a true act of magnanimity, and, dare I use an old-fashioned word, “patriotism”.
Barbara Brandenburger
London

• Recent comments about the policies of the Labour party and the merits (or otherwise) of Ed Miliband overlook one issue: the problem for Labour of confronting the way in which the Conservative party has been allowed to command the language of social – and political – unity through its endless invocation of the mantra of “hard-working families”. This leaves the Labour party with the problem of finding its own location for political cohesion, hugely difficult since the slogan about “hard-working families” has so much social resonance and is so vivid a description of many in the British population.

But while the great majority of us are hard-working (if in various forms of families), we have another shared characteristic: that at some point in our lives we will all (even those who suppose themselves above such assistance) rely on some form of that state support which the Conservative party and Ukip are so set on reducing, if not actually abolishing. This could lead the Labour party to the conclusion that the basis for a viable challenge to a political regime of austerity and the refusal to care for the vulnerable (be they in the UK or perilously afloat on the Mediterranean) lies in the articulation of a political morality of care. Or to put it another way, which perhaps challenges that “hard-working” slogan, however hard you work, you will never be able to afford to pay for all you need, not just for your care, but that of others.
Mary Evans
Patrixbourne, Kent

• Poor Ed Miliband, criticised on all sides. Yes, some of his inner circle may be Oxford-educated (Letters, 8 November), but before Oxford, Lucy Powell went to a comprehensive school in south Manchester, and grew up with ordinary Mancunians like my daughters and their friends.
Susan H Treagus
Manchester

• I’m tired of cheap jibes at Labour politicians. Lucy Powell represents Manchester Central, a deprived multi-ethnic inner-city constituency. It includes Moss Side, whose Labour councillors are a Pakistani woman who was partly brought up in a children’s home and who endured a forced marriage at the age of 14, a youth worker who devoted his life to homeless young people and those with mental health issues, and a young woman trade unionist who supports low-paid shop workers. (She replaced, on his retirement, a Windrush-era Jamaican who worked on the buses.) Other wards could tell similar stories of councillors and Labour activists rooted in everyday life, and seeing daily the ruinous effects of the coalition’s brutal policies. They (and her constituents) give Lucy, who is an active constituency MP, plenty of feedback and understanding about life as it is lived at the edge.

Those who criticise, quibble and mock from the comfort of academia or the media or less-challenged areas of Britain make us furious. It is time for people to decide which side they are on, or are we to assume that nobody actually cares about the outcome of the next election?
Gabrielle Cox
Manchester

• The Labour MPs who are sniping at Ed Miliband should be ashamed of themselves and get on with the job for which there were elected. There are too many in the House Commons who forget where they come from and become obsessed with celebrity politics and so-called “leadership” qualities.

The job of leading a political party has to be about coordinating a team and working collectively to bring about changes in the public interest. And there is the example of Clem Attlee whose quiet influence and determination as Labour prime minister was key to introducing the NHS, the welfare state, and greater educational opportunities for all.

There are Labour MPs – and especially young and dynamic female Labour MPs – who can be part of an effective team with Ed Miliband in office which the country deserves.

It is time for those Labour MPs and former Labour ministers who are calling for the departure of Ed Miliband to show responsibility to the Labour party and the country, to call off the dogs and stop behaving like naughty children.
Michael McGowan
Former Labour MEP for Leeds

• All Labour MPs (including Ed Miliband) should learn paragraphs two to six of Alan Johnson’s piece by heart and should be instructed to use them to begin every speech between now and next May. In fact, following the example of the big beasts of politics, they should repeat them every time they are asked a question about anything! Especially on Question Time. It may not too late to contest the coalition’s fairytale about the economy. It is vital for trust in politics that Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander (who promote that fairytale at every opportunity, knowing it to be false) should not be involved in any future coalition, so Labour has to do well enough to govern alone. Alan Johnson has just written part one of the script. Part two is a radical manifesto, which must include (see Polly Toynbee and Aditya Chakrabortty in the same issue) building enough social housing in the inner cities to reduce property prices, prick the buy-to-let bubble, and bring down the housing benefit bill.
Richard Gravil
Tirril, Cumbria

• Your editorial on the leadership of the Labour party rightly states that Miliband needs “to be more proactive and more focused about pushing his key policies”, but ignores the possibility that these “key policies” may be causing the problem in the first place. Your statement that there are “no easy fixes for centre-left parties in modern politics” overlooks an obvious option that Miliband would be well advised to consider – to move further from the centre. When he has done this in the past, as with the energy price freeze pledge, his support in the polls has increased. On the other hand, with policies that merely tinker, and change little, there can be neither vision nor transformation, and the UK after five years of a Miliband government would be pretty similar to what it is now, something the electorate clearly understands.

Joining the other two main party leaders queueing up to pay homage to the CBI, similar to his actions in Scotland in referendum week, will only enhance the view that there is little to choose between them. An £8-an-hour minimum wage by 2020 suggests exactly the same. “Left”-leaning policies, like ending privatisation and making City institutions pay their fair share at last, properly regulating rented property so that tenants do not pay inflated rents to profiteering Rachman-like landlords, and allowing the gradual renationalisation of railways to proceed when franchises become available, would at least indicate voters were not totally being taken for granted.

The adoption of transformational policies which aim to reshape society so that it works for the common good, and not just for the financial sector and the 1%, would actually show Labour, not before time, was “raising its game”.
Bernie Evans
Liverpool

• The massive Twitter response, by 50,000 Labour grassroots members and supporters, backing Ed Miliband’s leadership (…meanwhile tweeters say #webackEd, 10 November) emphasises the parliamentary plotters’ proposed denial of ordinary members’ democratic rights to participate in the party’s constitutional electoral college (to elect another leader). The time available before the general election would make this impossible, and some plotters have already called for a swift election with only one candidate on offer. The undemocratic outcome of such a parliamentary-party-only election, let alone one with a single candidate, would deeply offend and alienate the party’s grassroots members and supporters, who would be disenfranchised. Many would leave the party and/or refuse to work in the coming election.

Lessons must be learned from 2007 when Gordon Brown was crowned leader without a democratic election.This happened because Brown bagged the nominations of all but a handful of MPs. This prevented other candidates being offered, to the party as a whole, because of insufficient nominations from the parliamentary party. Following that debacle the party lost nearly 30,000 members and many remaining activists refused to work in the 2010 election campaign. The enormity of what the anonymous plotters are proposing would probably provoke a greater negative reaction this time.

As for the credibility of north-west MPs who apparently hatched the plot, they demonstrated their contempt for, and lack of democratic accountability to, ordinary party members when only one in nine of them bothered to attend their regional Labour conference a few days before they launched their conspiracy. Local MPs are expected to attend this function to report back to the ordinary members and demonstrate their accountability to them. Their lack of democratic accountability was criticised by a number of party members who addressed the conference.
Gaye Johnston
Chair, Campaign for Labour Party Democracy

You ask what responsibility banks have when a customer’s single-digit error in an account number sends the money to the wrong place (Money, 8 November). It’s considerable, because of faults in the banks’ own processes. In most cases the person requesting the money transfer provides the intended recipient’s name as well as account number. This could act as a check, but banks seem not to make it. In systems analysis class, I was taught to use check digits to protect account numbers. Credit card companies do this and they protect completely against single digit errors, so the banks are not following best practice. As we continue to move to online banking, there will be many new opportunities to get account numbers wrong. These could be greatly reduced by re-engineered processes that required less copying of critical data.
David Flint
Visiting fellow, Cass Business School

John Bird’s assertion (Letters, 11 November) that “no one alive now can personally remember a single one of the millions of young men who were persuaded to kill each other a century ago” is an insult to my generation.

I remember with sadness and horror my great-uncle, who, aged 15, ran away to join the Northumberland Fusiliers and became a runner between the trenches. He survived (with a Military Medal), only to live the life of a itinerant alcoholic, returning every so often to my grandmother’s home. And I remember the unearthly howling every night as he dreamt of things we cannot imagine.

I remember too my grandfather who was shipped out from the western front to fight in the Sinai peninsula. He too survived, having proved adept at handling camels, but wanted nothing more than his job as a beat bobby in Leeds.

I am proud that my granddaughter’s school recently displayed the mementoes of both these men. Personally, I will never forget either of them.
Nova Gresham
Exeter

• I personally knew my grandfather who at the age of 17 was driving a team of horses at Mons when the gun carriage they were pulling was hit by a German shell, instantly killing his four comrades. The force of the blast threw him clear but he laid injured and unconscious on the battlefield and suffered mustard gas inhalation that blinded him for six months and physically disabled him for the rest of his life, until he died a premature death in 1963.

I also knew my grandmother, who served as a nurse including time in the hospital at Woolwich Arsenal. She defied orders to abandon her post during a Zeppelin raid and organised her patients into firefighting teams to put out the incendiaries. She saved countless lives and was gazetted but had to wait 50 years for her bravery to be officially recognised, because she was a woman working with the British Legion and therefore not considered part of the armed forces.

I salute you, Ernest Trude and Frances Harris. You are my heroes.
Chris Trude
London

• My maternal grandfather certainly killed Germans. He was a sniper, and he hated it. He was twice wounded and twice sent back. He was lucky to survive, and I remember him well from my childhood. I carry his watch on Remembrance Day. My paternal grandfather also served, and was wounded and taken prisoner, and his brother was killed in a POW camp. I never met my great-uncle but I knew and loved my grandfathers. Both had their lives irremediably changed by serving in the first world war and serving as fire-watchers in the second. I suspect that for many of us, remembrance is not just about the war dead but about all those who served.

We should also remember that this ceremony is not just about the dead of the first world war, who may indeed have passed from living memory, but of the second world war and subsequent wars, for which memories are still very much alive. I find the Remembrance Day services overblown, lacking in rage, and too religious and militaristic. However, I still take the opportunity to reflect on the sacrifices of my forebears.
Catherine Rose
Olney, Buckinghamshire

• At primary school (in the 30s) I remember our teacher telling us about the Great War and suggesting that we bring in a penny to buy a poppy to wear. The next morning, the teacher quietly gave coins to those who had forgotten or were not able to spare the money. The seller, an ex-serviceman, then came in with his tray and talked a little about what the poppies meant. He then said: “If you have a penny you may take a small poppy but if you have sixpence or more you may take one of the poppy sprays in the tray.” I remember being deeply upset by this disparity. I could not understand why just because you were able to give more you should expect to have a more ostentatious spray. Nowadays poppy sellers all have the same simple flower but royals and celebrities still appear with elaborate sprays or precious metal brooches with enamelled poppy flowers. More than 50 years on I find this as distasteful as when I was five. Am I alone in this?
Brenda Banks
Teignmouth, Devon

• Presumably I am just imagining my father, who joined the medical corps in 1914, aged 15, after hearing that wounded men were being left on the battlefield due to a lack of stretcher-bearers. I am only 62, so I can’t be the only one who still remembers.
Cathy Schling
London

• I remember my dad very well, as a matter of fact. He was at Gallipoli. He didn’t like it.
Barry Hewlett-Davies
Brighton, East Sussex

• The poppies around the Tower of London have touched extraordinary chords of remembrance, art and charitable giving. Is there not opportunity to grasp this concept to mix pleasure with sentiment and alms, in other times and for other purposes? Such artworks could be displayed, dismantled, then dispatched to offer genuine lifelong remembrance mixed with joy to those who grieve.
Mel Wilder
Scarborough, North Yorkshire

• Civilian victims of wars still lack their memorials, though one that could be counted, from 1935, stands in Woodford Green, Essex. A stone bomb on a plinth, it is inscribed with the words: “This monument is raised as a protest against war in the air.” Commissioned by Sylvia Pankhurst, its tone is ironic, as it refers to the 1932 World Disarmament Conference in Geneva that upheld the right to use bombing aeroplanes.

It initially drew attention to the bombing by Italian airmen of Abyssinia, which led on to the second world war. Its renaming as the Anti-Air War Memorial extends its increasing relevance to the high cost paid by civilian victims of the ever-increasing firepower visited on them not just by bombing planes but by increasingly marketed unmanned drones.
Sylvia Ayling
Woodford Green, Essex

• Once again the UK’s Remembrance Sunday commemoration at the Cenotaph gave religion a privileged role (Comment is free, theguardian.com, 6 November), with a Church of England bishop leading a hymn and prayer, accompanied by male clergy and boy choir. A dozen religious denominations were also represented, but no atheists. This disrespects the many war dead and injured, as well as members of the armed forces and other citizens, who reject religion.

The Cenotaph, which dates from 1920, was deliberately designed as a secular state monument bearing no religious symbols in recognition of the wide diversity of the fallen. The same should apply to the annual ceremony. It should be a fully inclusive occasion, not an opportunity for one section of society to impose their particular belief.
RM Atkinson
Edinburgh

Ken Livingstone, George Galloway et al are totally wrong to suggest that the proposed intervention in Tower Hamlets is an attack on local democracy (Letters, 7 November). It is entirely to do with protecting local taxpayers from an abuse of executive power and the systematic breakdown of local democratic checks and balances. The independent inspection of the council by PwC found extensive evidence of poor governance, financial mismanagement and a lack of transparency over the awarding of public grants and disposal of public buildings in Tower Hamlets. This also follows the Electoral Commission’s concerns about the conduct of local elections in the borough.

The residents of Tower Hamlets have a right to expect that their council tax is properly accounted for, providing transparency and audit trails of how their money is spent, and that correct democratic processes are upheld. We do not take intervention actions lightly, but previous interventions – such as in Doncaster in 2010 – have helped tackle dysfunctional governance and restore public confidence in the integrity of councils. Localism requires transparency, probity and robust scrutiny: as Eric Pickles said in parliament last week, “there can be no place for rotten boroughs in 21st-century Britain”.
Tariq Ahmad
Communities minister

• There is much more to be done to tackle worklessness in Nottingham (Report, 7 November). However, a like-for-like comparison with other conurbations is misleading. Nottingham has a large number of students and an unusually tight local authority boundary. Both of these facts skew the figures. In the Greater Nottingham area the figure (excluding student households) is 20.4%. This is much closer to comparable cities (Liverpool (24.6%), Birmingham (22.7%), Newcastle (22.5%), Manchester (20.2%). Unemployment remains too high in Nottingham, but it has fallen by 26% since May 2011, so we are making some progress. However, we will never truly be able to tackle worklessness until we have local control of work-related benefits, employment support programmes and core skills funding. Regional cities account for over a quarter of the nation’s economy, and we have the ability to create jobs, but we are let down by an overcentralised system that needs to change. Therefore, whilst the reality that underlies the statistics is complex, the solution is simple. Government needs to empower all cities to generate jobs by devolving power, and it needs to do so right away.
Cllr Nick McDonald
Cabinet member for jobs and growth, Nottingham city council

• Your correspondent refers to the plans for an elected mayor in Greater Manchester (Letters, 11 November), saying that two years ago Mancunians rejected such a proposal. Oh no, we didn’t! There are nine local authorities in Greater Manchester but only the residents of one of those districts, Manchester, were consulted in that referendum. The remaining 80% have never been asked.
David Hoult
Stockport

Removing 65 ‘unsightly’ pylons will cost £500 million. Opinion is split over whether it is money well spent

Sir, Alice Thomson says that we will all profit if National Grid buries cables underground (Opinion, Nov 12). Her argument seems to be based on the opinion that transmission lines and pylons are an artificial intrusion into otherwise unspoilt landscapes. If this is a valid argument, will we be seeing structures such as the Ribblehead viaduct being dismantled?

If the argument is that pylons are ugly whereas viaducts are beautiful, that is truly in the eyes of the beholder — impossible to be quantifiably defended and open to endless discussion. Conversely, the removal of overhead power lines in certain areas has a measurable effect on all of us. Unlike viaducts that serve only those who wish to travel from one point to another, power transmission lines serve us all, and this is reflected in the 22p addition to everybody’s energy bills.

Moreover, when a transmission line is buried the land above it can never be used for anything that might hinder repairs, and so no trees can be allowed to grow there. Will the resulting barren scars not in themselves be seen in the future as artificial blights on the landscape?

David Lindsley, FIET Hon Fellow
Kingston University

Sir, It is welcome news that National Grid is to spend £500 million on removing unsightly pylons from some of our most beautiful countryside (report, Nov 11). It is absurd, however, that at the very time that it announces these improvements, National Grid is consulting on a “preferred route” for a new power line that would string 50-metre-high pylons for 44km through or close to the Lake District National Park?

Surely the first priority should be to put underground all new grid lines that have to cross National Parks or Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Even stranger, National Grid has identified an “offshore south” alternative route in Cumbria that would take its cables across the sea bed and avoid the Lake District National Park altogether. This route would almost certainly be cheaper, too.

Sir Martin Holdgate
President, Friends of the Lake District, Kendal, Cumbria

Sir, I was struck by the contrast between the stark message in your leader (“The State We’re In”, Nov 11) and the news in the same edition that National Grid is planning to spend £7 million per pylon to reduce its visual impact. As you point out in your leader, we need to decide what we can, and cannot, afford. How can spending £500 million of electricity customers’ money on this scheme be justified? These pylons were built after a robust planning process: reversing the outcome is an unnecessary luxury.

To add insult to injury, we are told by Chris Baines, the environmentalist who is apparently to decide where this money is spent, that consultation on his plans would “take for ever and become parochial”. This is a very different approach to that taken by the green lobby when it opposes infrastructure developments.

Alun Ellis
Tallentire, Cumbria

Sir, You report that the burying of cables to remove 65 pylons will cost £500 million, which I can well believe having buried high-voltage cables myself. What I find remarkable is that National Grid can somehow obtain the money and only charge the ordinary consumer 22p a year. Please let us all know how they do it as I need to borrow a large sum of money to start a wealth creating venture and the repayments are eye-watering in comparison.

Mike Travers, FIET
Saline, Fife

Sir, In the Sixties and Seventies the CEGB employed a group of architects and landscape designers to weave pylons and their cables into the natural folds of the countryside, often very successfully. This art seems to have been forgotten. I would far rather that the wind turbines were buried (or drowned), as parts of our landscape and Liverpool Bay are ruined by them.

Giles Velarde
Battle, E Sussex

Is this the definition of irony? Spending £7 million per pylon to remove unsightly overhead cables while subsidising the erection of wind turbines.

Christopher Wheeldon
London SW13

Nicky Morgan is surely wrong to insist that the way forward for pupils is to stop studying arts

Sir, Nicky Morgan is correct to claim that “it takes a pretty confident 16-year-old to have their whole life mapped out ahead of them” (“Stop studying arts if you want a good job, minister says”, Nov 11), but surely she is wrong to insist that the way forward is to stop studying arts. As a teacher of mathematics I would say the real problem is narrowing choice at 16 towards either science, arts or humanities. A properly rounded programme (such as the International Baccalaureate or a suitable combination of varied A levels) is the only way to guarantee the open career options Ms Morgan supports.

A leading designer who visited my school last term told the pupils that she believed her most important qualification was in foreign languages.

Paul Mitchell

Headmaster, Cobham Hall, Kent

Victor Matfield is not the only veteran rugby player to have enduring power. What about Paul O’Connell?

Sir, Owen Slot (Nov 11) writes an insightful article on the enduring powers of certain rugby veterans, such as Victor Matfield, Richie McCaw and Bakkies Botha. I admire all three but wonder why he did not mention Paul O’Connell: 35 years old, 90-odd caps for Ireland (and a winning ratio), seven caps for the Lions including the captaincy, and a 5-3 winning record in head-to-heads with Matfield, including last Saturday.

Perhaps the answer lies in Mr Slot’s last paragraph. Could it be that for all the criticism it receives, and its relatively limited resources, Irish rugby has it right?

Maurice Byrne

London SW10

David Blunkett is right about the farming radio soap: The Archers has lost its way

Sir, How I agree with David Blunkett about the new editorship of The Archers (Nov 11). Everything is sad and bad and thoroughly depressing, and all my friends who are regular listeners feel the same. We have followed the characters over the years and now some of them have become ridiculously unreal.

Bridget Ryle

Winsford, Somerset

Sir, While I wholeheartedly agree with Mr Blunkett, he seems to have missed Mike Tucker’s point. It was not Mike who wanted to leave the village but Vicky. She persuaded Mike, saying that there would be better opportunities for their daughter, Bethany. In real life, many families who have farmed for generations on the same land have been faced with similar problems of compulsory road or house-building. They have fought their cases, and those who have lost have stayed and diversified to save their livelihoods and farms for the next generation.

David Archer should show he is British and built of sterner stuff and carry the farm forward for Pip . . . not fly the white flag and run.

Laura Shuttleworth

Cherington, Glos

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