Wonderful idea to get an article on poor working conditions from a pub named for Samuel Plimsoll (Builders, bakers and cheeseburger-makers: the UK workers struggling in extreme heat, 14 August), but I suspect many readers will not realise the irony.
Much of Plimsoll’s efforts to make shipping less dangerous through the introduction of safe loading lines – the so-called Plimsoll line – has now been forgotten because of the resemblance of his line to a piece of footwear.
But his work saved countless lives, and he is commemorated with a memorial on the Thames Embankment, paid for by the National Union of Seamen.
Perhaps we now need a Plimsoll mark for thermometers.
Steve Smyth
Norwood, London
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