Re Adrian Chiles’s article (I thought I knew what farmers’ lives were like. I was so wrong, 29 February), many years ago, while at the South of England Agricultural Show, I took my small group of children to the “meet a farmer” stand. When the lady who greeted us said to the children: “I am a farmer. What would you like to ask me?” The look of disbelief on every child’s face caused her to shrug and say: “I’ll go and get my husband.”
Barbara Tomkinson
East Grinstead, West Sussex
• May I thank Andy Beckett for his perceptive profile of shapeshifter Michael Gove (Anderson and Braverman shout loudest, but one man has led the toxification of the Tories: Michael Gove, 2 March). As one of thousands of teachers who suffered from his zealotry, it was a reminder of the dangers presented by politicians who put self-promotion above the public good. Or, as the US satirist Ambrose Bierce put it: “A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.”
David Hughes
Bath
