I wanted to have my ears pierced. It was 1976, and a friend in Brighton, Stephanie, said I should come to this new shop in the North Laine there. My ears were pierced in the back of the shop, although not by Anita Roddick. The tiny shop was an Aladdin’s cave of small bottles and jars, all full of new smells and interesting possibilities. RIP The Body Shop (Zoe Williams, 13 February).
Lynn Wiseman
Lewes, East Sussex
• So the sale of a Downing Street visitors’ book from the Margaret Thatcher era has been blocked because “it belongs to the nation, not … to be sold” (Report, 13 February). Had Thatcher taken the same position in 1989, on the privatisation of the water industry, we might have cleaner rivers now.
Patricia Baker-Cassidy
Oxford
