Feedback | 2 July 2005

Second-hand smoke

Rod Liddle makes a living out of being controversial, but to do so with effect he should also be accurate with his facts (‘My right to cough up blood’, 25 June). His article suggests that people who complain about passive smoking are being melodramatic. But there is an absolute proven link between second-hand smoking and lung cancer. He could ask the Department of Health’s own officials or he could ask the families we deal with whose children have died as a result of someone else’s selfishness. Fifty-odd non-smoking bar workers die from second-hand smoking-related illness each year. And if Rod Liddle knew that this figure is higher than the annual occupational death rate for the police force, he too might reconsider his opposition to a ban.
Mike Unger
The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation, Liverpool

Mr Rod Liddle quotes Ash’s claim that smoking stops you from suffering from cancer of the endometrium. I lost my womb 18 years ago from that condition in spite of having been a heavy smoker for years.
Joan Ostrom
Woking, Surrey

George was no threat

Leo McKinstry was dishonourable (‘Harmless old buggers’, 18 June) to name the late George Andrews as a schoolmaster who was the ‘reverse’ of anti-homosexual and ‘clung to the Wildean spirit’. If George were alive, he would have every cause to sue for defamation. McKinstry has accurately, though not fully, described George’s character, which some disliked, but makes mistakes (George was a cox, not an oarsman) and fails to note his qualities as an organiser, effective French teacher and lay preacher. George’s tendency to appear totally (or usually partly) nude was not confined to his encounters with callow teenagers but could manifest itself at any time. I remember him startling my mother (a chaste widow) in this way when he stayed with us at Derriaghy for a few days — my uncle (a headmaster) suspected him of matrimonial ambitions! In any case, why is nudity a mark of homosexuality?

George’s like of favourites was probably misplaced and he made them feel uncomfortable, but can Leo produce a single account of indecent behaviour by George? I cannot.