Adrian Chiles (22 October) wonders why Beeching never closed the Heart of Wales line. The story goes that his proposal to do so was being nodded through Harold Wilson’s cabinet when George Thomas MP saved it by pointing out that it ran through several marginal constituencies. As a Methodist from childhood, though, Thomas would never have approved of wine being consumed on the line.
Peter Griffith
Droitwich, Worcestershire
• Now that Steve Coogan has agreed to pay damages to an academic misrepresented in the film about the exhumation of Richard III (Report, 27 October), some enterprising spirit medium ought to be able to swing a substantial libel claim on the king’s behalf against the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Bryn Hughes
Wrexham
